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The Reign of the Servant Kings By Joseph C. Dillow A Review-Summary-Outline
Chapter 18—Conditional Security: The Letters of Paul
Romans 6:15-23
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:15-23)
Arminians are impressed with the commands to believers to continue to present their bodies as servants of righteousness (Romans 6:19). They recognize that the consequence of failure to do so is death: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Death here is contrasted with “eternal life.” In chapter 7 the precise meaning of that term was considered at length and those results may now be applied here. The term “eternal life” is used four times in Romans (2:7; 5:21; 6:22, 23). In two cases eternal life is viewed from the standpoint of abundant life, an enriched experience of life that was begun at regeneration. That rich experience of life is conditioned upon obedience:
Who "will render to each one according to his deeds": eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality. (Romans 2:6, 7)
But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. (Romans 6:22).
The outcome of sanctification, a gradual process involving our faith and obedience, is eternal life. The other reference to the term is in 5:21 where Paul says that “grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life.” This may refer to the initial inception of eternal life at regeneration, not the enriched experience of it due to faith and obedience. However, it could also refer to the reign of the believer, an experience beyond regeneration.
Throughout the book of Romans Paul uses the terms “life” and “death” in various ways. Normally “life” refers to a rich present experience of and with Christ and not specifically regeneration. Conversely, “death” is commonly its opposite, spiritual impoverishment, and not hell:
For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17)
The reign of death is a reference to the fact that all men physically die, even those who have not disobeyed the law because they have not yet heard of it (Romans 5:14). In contrast to the reign of death, something “much more” is available to the believer, a “reign in life.” If all that was meant was regeneration or resurrection, then a mere balance with the reign of death would be referred to, and not something “much more.” It is for this reason that many expositors interpret the reign in life not just with regenerate life but with the rulership in the future age, the “consummation of [our] redemption in the Messianic Kingdom in the world to come.”
This is parallel to Paul’s statement:
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. (2 Timothy 2:12)
It is likely that Paul refers to the same reign in life, similarly conditioned upon our perseverance in suffering with Him, as seen in the following:
And if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. (Romans 8:17)
In Romans 6:4 (Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life) “life” is “newness of life.” He refers not just to regeneration but to the full experience of a “walk” in newness of life. And the life and death contrast is continued in Romans 7. In his pre-Christian days Paul viewed himself as “alive” spiritually (Romans 7:9), but when the full implications of the law dawned upon him, he was defeated with guilt and “died” in the sense of depression and defeat in his spiritual struggle. He certainly did not die in the sense of “go to hell” for all men are born dead in that regard.
“Life” refers to “abundant life,” and not just regeneration, is also indicated in 8:6 (For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace) where it is associated with “peace” in “life and peace.”
Consistent with his predominant usage of the terms in the epistle, Paul is also speaking of “life” and “death” in the sense of abundant life and spiritual impoverishment in Romans 8:13: For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
No doubt James had a similar idea in mind when he wrote to Christians in whom the Word had been “implanted”:
Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:12-15)
That James is talking to Christians is obvious. And it is equally obvious that these Christians can in some sense die. The “death” they might potentially experience from a failure to be “doers of the Word” is the death of spiritual impoverishment.
It is in this way that, contextually, “eternal life” and “death” are to be understood in Romans 6:23. The result of sin in the life of a Christian is spiritual impoverishment (7:15:25). A non-Christian is already dead in trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1). The wages earned by sin secures the same result as that obtained by the man who lives according to the flesh (8:13), spiritual failure; but in no case is this to suggest that spiritual failure is to be equated with loss of justification. Death cannot mean “go to hell.” The apostle emphatically declares just the opposite:
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38, 39)
Eternal life is indeed a “free gift.” But the growth and full enjoyment of that free gift is the product of faith and obedience (i.e., sanctification, 6:22) and “persevering in doing good” (2:7).
Romans 11:22
In Romans 11:11 Paul makes a perplexing statement:
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. (Romans 11:11)
It is perplexing because of the widely held equation of salvation with final deliverance from hell. Such a meaning of salvation here results in the absurd teaching that no Gentiles were delivered from hell until Israel had first been offered such deliverance and then rejected it. But salvation here does not mean deliverance from hell but rather, “riches for the world.”
Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! (Romans 11:12)
Paul is speaking here of the national promises to Israel, and not of the individual redemption of particular Jews or Gentiles. What is in view is the “greater riches” of joint participation with the Messiah in the final destiny of man! The natural branches, Israel, were broken off of the tree of Abrahamic blessing. This means they forfeited their participation in the promises to Abraham. It does not refer to being broken off from heaven but from “riches.”
Unnatural branches, Gentiles, were grafted into the place of Abrahamic blessing, the Kingdom rule. This is Paul’s teaching when he reveals that Gentiles have been made “fellow heirs” of the promises (Ephesians 3:6; cf. 2:11-22).
Paul, in the last chapter of Acts and after concluding that the Jews were not open to the kingdom of God (28:23), concludes that the kingdom of God has been taken from the Jews: “Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear it!” (28:28). He evidently has Psalm 98 in mind:
The LORD has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has revealed in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. (Psalm 98:2, 3)
The psalm goes on to describe the rule of the coming Messiah:
For He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world, and the peoples with equity. (Psalm 98:9)
The “salvation” of the Lord is not, in this passage, deliverance from hell but the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom.
Jews and Gentiles, who were formerly enemies, have been reconciled in one body in Christ. The enmity between them, due to the Gentile rejection of the law, has been removed by eliminating the law so that “He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh the law with its commandments and regulations” (Ephesians 2:14-15). Now those who were “aliens” and “far off” and “strangers to the covenants of promise” are brought near (2:12).
Paul refers to this same reconciliation between Jew and Gentile in Romans:
For if their being cast away [rejection] is the reconciling of the world [removal of enmity between Jew and Gentile], what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (11:15)
If, due to the Jewish national rejection of the Messiah, the Gentiles were grafted into the place of blessing, think what will happen when the Jews return to the Messiah. It will be like “life from the dead,” magnificent universal righteousness in the coming 1,000 year Kingdom of God.
Now drawing a lesson from the national loss of Israel and national gain by the Gentiles, Paul applies this in personal terms to individual Gentiles. He warns them that just as the Jewish nation was “cut off” nationally, so they too can be “cut off” individually:
Therefore consider the goodness [kindness] and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness [kindness], if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. (Romans 11:22, 23).
There is a real danger here. An individual Gentile can be “cut off” just as national Israel was cut off. But from what was national Israel “cut”? They were not “cut off” from heaven, because heaven was never offered on national grounds, only on individual grounds. One did not go to heaven because he was born a Jew but because he believed. Rather, national Israel was temporarily cut off from their rights to the covenants and promises. Instead of fulfilling their destiny, they are nationally under discipline until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. Then all Israel will be “saved,” i.e., restored to her privileged place of rulership over the millennial earth.
The danger to which Paul then refers is that Gentile believers may individually, like Israel did nationally, forfeit their opportunity to share in that great future salvation, the Kingdom of God, joint rulership with the Messiah in the future reign of the servant kings. The wild olive tree onto which the Gentiles have been grafted and from which could be “cut off” is not heaven. It is the privilege of sharing in the Abrahamic promises made to Israel regarding the great land and the great nation. Forfeiture of personal salvation is not Paul’s concern here; rather, it is the loss of rewards.
“God’s kindness,” His inclusion of believers in this great future purpose, is contingent upon continuing in His kindness (Romans 11:22), i.e., upon their perseverance to the end of life. Such “continuing” is not inevitable, for Paul warns them of the consequences of failure, i.e., being “cut off.” Christ spoke of dead or useless branches being cut off from fruit bearing and communion in John 15 (cf. 2, 6). In Hebrews the readers are warned that they are partakers, sharers in the final destiny of man, only if they hold fast the beginning of their assurance firm until the end (3:13).
Strict Calvinistic exegesis of this passage is severely deficient. In their equation of the wild olive tree with heaven the Calvinists give the argument away to those of an Arminian perspective. The proof, they say, that a man is truly born again is that he “continues in His kindness.” The problem is, however, that, if he does not, he is cut off from the wild olive tree. To be cut off from it obviously implies that one was once part of it. In other words, he had salvation and lost it, which is precisely the view of many Arminian interpreters.
However, both Arminians and strict Calvinists have missed the point of the context, which has nothing to do with gaining and losing heaven. It has to do with gaining and losing “salvation,” joint participation with the Messiah in the rulership of the coming Kingdom.
1 Corinthians 3:16, 17
Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are. (1 Corinthians 3:16, 17)
Although some hold that these verses refer to some type of sin, e.g., suicide, which results in the loss of the believer’s salvation (justification; heaven); this is not the case. Furthermore, even though Paul uses the word “temple” to refer to the believer’s physical body in 1 Corinthians 6:19, this too is not what Paul means by the word in this passage.
The “temple” in this passage is the local assembly of believers, not the individual Christian. The context of the passage falls within Paul’s comments pertaining the building up of the local assembly by various ministers (1 Corinthians 3:5-8). He is concerned about the divisions in Corinth and how the building up of this local assembly is progressing.
For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, you are God's building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. (1 Corinthians 3:8, 10)
The assembly (building or temple) was rife with carnality (3:3, 4). There were fights and lawsuits among its members, which were disrupting their unity and threatening to destroy the assembly. The view of the “temple” in this passage is widely accepted because it flows naturally out of the context. Here the local church is viewed as a temple of God inhabited by the Spirit; in 1 Corinthians 6:19 the individual is a temple of God.
The destruction in this context does not refer to any particular sin such as suicide, but it refers to the destruction of the local body of believers. And the consequences from God toward anyone who would destroy the local assembly is from a temporal perspective, their own physical destruction (1 Corinthians 5:5); and from an eternal perspective, a loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ (1 Corinthians 3:12-15).
In conclusion, there is no justification in this passage for the teaching that a believer can commit some sin, even suicide, which can in any way affect his eternal destiny. That destiny is secure because it does not depend upon what the believer does but upon what Christ has done for the believer. Jesus declared that He will lose “none” of those whom the Father has given to Him (John 6:39, 40; 10:27-29).
1 Corinthians 8:11
And because of your knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? (1 Corinthians 8:11)
The weak brother can “perish.” The same word is used in John 3:16 for eternal damnation. Yet it seems foolish to believe that Paul is teaching that a man can lose his position in Christ because he came under the influence of a carnal Christian. The Greek word apollumi means “to come to naught or to lose.” A man could lose heaven or a temporal place of usefulness or reward at the judgment seat of Christ. In fact, Jesus uses it in connection with losing one’s reward in Matthew 10:42. Paul’s meaning, expressed in contemporary language, would be something like “shattered, deeply hurt and crushed.” The weaker brother is so shaken by observing his fellow Christian doing an “unthinkable” act that for a while at least, he is of no use to Christ. It could even mean that he becomes so demoralized that in the end he forfeits any possibility of reward for himself (Romans 14:15). It does not mean that he loses his salvation.
1 Corinthians 15:1, 2
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you--unless you believed in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1, 2)
Arminians and strict Calvinists both find evidence for their doctrine pertaining to security of the believer, but other interpretations are more logical, such as:
Galatians 5:4
You have become estranged [severed] from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. (Galatians 5:4)
Although it is common for Christians who are of a certain Arminian persuasion to use the phrase, “fallen from grace,” they usually are unaware of where it came from and to what it originally referred. To understand its original meaning and how it should always be used, it is necessary to understand how the Apostle Paul first used it in referring to those to whom he was addressing in the book of Galatians.
Paul was writing to Christians who were being influenced by a group of false teachers who taught that salvation is apprehended by faith in Christ plus works, i.e., keeping the law. These false teachers had a particular fixture on the rite of circumcision (5:6). The danger Paul’s readers faced was not loss of salvation (justification) or even a lapse into immorality. Their danger was that they might return to the bondage of the law.
It is clear that falling from grace is not a reference to loss of salvation. If it was, Paul would have mentioned something about hell or loss of heaven. The only thing Paul stresses is that they are about to return to a “yoke of bondage.”
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. (Galatians 5:1)
In fact, the context of the entire epistle to the Galatians was a treatise on the danger of turning from “the grace of Christ, to a different gospel,” which was being proffered by some “who trouble you and want to pervert [distort] the gospel of Christ.”
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. (Galatians 1:6, 7)
It is within this context that Paul uses the phrase, “fallen from grace.” Nowhere in the context of the epistle or the immediate context of the passage in question does Paul say that loss of salvation is possible. Rather, he is trying to prevent his readers from returning to a law-system as a way of life.
Paul’s warning in verse 2 of chapter 5 is strictly against being drawn back into the legalistic system of the Mosaic code from which his readers have been liberated. To return to the law-system forfeits the freedom from law that Christ’s death accomplished. It does not forfeit salvation.
Another phrase in Galatians 5:4 is likewise misinterpreted. It is: “You have become estranged [severed] from Christ.” This phrase, literally from Greek, means something like “you have been made to receive no effect from Christ.” But what “effect” is Paul speaking of, sanctification or justification? The following verse presents a righteousness that is to be waited for and that comes through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Clearly, a moral, not a forensic, righteousness is anticipated.
Thus, sanctification is the effect that the readers will not receive in verse 4. To return to the law way of life results in their receiving none of the sanctifying effects of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It is in this sense that they are “estranged” or “severed” from Christ.
It is doubtful that the word “grace” (Gk. charis) is ever used in the New Testament of the “state” of salvation [Editor’s comment: Although it is used for the basis of salvation, Ephesians 2:8].
Editor’s note: The author states that Romans 5:2 may be a possible exception to this. But in context with verse 1, the meaning becomes clear:
Therefore, having been justified by faith [salvation], we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace [sanctification] in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1, 2)
There is no question that grace is the basis of all that God provide to and for the believer.
Two different ways of living the Christian life are being contrasted in Galatians 5, not two different eternal states. To “fall from grace” and to be “estranged or severed from Christ” in this context is to fall into law, not into damnation.
Colossians 1:23
. . . yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight— if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister. (Colossians 1:21-23)
Both Arminians and Calvinists appeal to this passage in support of their positions. Both misinterpret it. The focus (context) here is on being presented holy, blameless, and beyond reproach. Paul is laboring to present the Colossians, truly regenerate people, with the charge to “continue in the faith.” Nonbelievers do not have faith in which to continue.
Their goal is sanctification, not salvation (justification). Throughout the New Testament there is portrayed the fact that eventually believers will be presented before their King, a time when some will be revealed as faithful and others as unfaithful servants (Luke 19:16-19).
Editor’s comment: The author continues with various other arguments for sanctification and not salvation as the trust of this passage. It is recommended to the readers of this review to acquire the author’s book for a full treatment.
2 Timothy 2:12
This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. If we endure, we shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. (2 Timothy 2:11-13)
Here the promise of reigning with Christ, being rewarded in the coming Millennial Kingdom is in the forefront. Those who are victorious in suffering and who persevere to the end will enjoy a joint-participation with Christ in the future reign of the servant kings. This theme is extensively presented in the New Testament (Matthew 16:24-27; 19:28, 29; Luke 22:28-30; Romans 8:17; Revelation 2:26, 27; 3:21).
That this is Paul’s meaning is clear from the opening word “for,” which points the reader back to verse 10:
Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
As discussed in Chapter 6, the word “salvation” does not necessarily mean “final deliverance from hell.” Indeed, in this context such a meaning would be most inappropriate. Paul has been discussing the rewards for perseverance (2 Timothy 2:5). This “salvation” is an additional crown that comes to those who are already saved, the elect. It is not salvation from hell for which Paul labors on behalf of the elect but that they might also posses “eternal glory,” i.e., “receive honor.” This is the same as receiving the crown mentioned earlier (2:5); therefore, to “reign with Him” is the reward, the salvation, the crown promised to those who persevere.
But in what sense can a believer “deny” Christ? It is the opposite of “enduring” in the preceding phrase. To deny Christ then is to fail to persevere in faith to the final hour. The result is that then Christ will also deny the believer, not of heaven, but from the privilege (the reward) of reigning with Christ during the Millennial Kingdom.
But even when the believer does “deny” his Lord, Christ remains faithful and will not deny Himself, in which all believers are permanently connected by the baptizing and sealing power of the Holy Spirit, the believer’s eternal security and promise of eternal life.
Conclusion
It is somewhat ironic that Paul, the apostle of grace, should be interpreted in such a way that salvation could be lost. The great apostle of liberty provides the clearest possible exposition of the grace of God and the absolute security of the justified. This topic will be explored in more detail in chapter 21.
Just as “death” does not always mean eternal death, neither does “salvation” always mean deliverance from hell. When Paul refers to “salvation” coming to the Gentiles in Romans 11, it is clear that salvation from hell is not in view. Rather, he refers to the future kingdom promised to Israel in the Old Testament. Gentiles can now have a share in this great future. Just as national Israel lost much, so individual Gentiles can also be cut off. But they are not cut off from heaven, only from the privilege of sharing in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promise, the future reign of the servant kings.
The other passages referred to in this chapter are easily interpreted in ways that are perfectly consistent with the doctrine of eternal security. The famous “if” clause of Colossians 1:23 does not cast doubt upon the believer’s ultimate arrival in heaven but upon his arriving there mature and pure. When Christ says He will deny the believer who denies Him, He does not mean that the believer will be denied entrance into heaven. He means he will be denied the opportunity of reigning with Christ in the Kingdom.
Arminians can find little support for their doctrine of conditional security in Paul’s writings. In the General Epistles, however, they often feel their case is secure, particularly in the warning of Hebrews, chapter 6. This passage is quoted more than any other by Arminians in defense of their doctrine of conditional security. This passage will be covered in detail in the next chapter; in fact, due to the complexity of the passage and the frequency with which it is quoted in defense of the Arminian view, an entire chapter will be devoted to it.
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