The Holy Ghost Said!
There Are Two Things Wrong
One day, I was thinking about the preaching anointing that Baptist preachers receive even without being baptized in the Holy Spirit. I recognized the anointing because I had preached under that anointing for four years, and had heard many others preach under that same anointing. To a spirit filled person, it comes across very dry with little joy and no spontaneous praise to God for his exceeding great and precious promises. As I thought on these things, the Holy Ghost said, "There are two things wrong with most Baptist preaching. It is a constant diet of salvation messages to people who are already saved and it usually creates sin consciousness instead of righteousness consciousness."
God wants his ministers to feed his sheep, but salvation messages aren't food to the person who is already saved. Most church assemblies consist primarily of Christians and a few sinners who have already heard the message so many times that they aren't going to respond to the current message anyway. The Christians need to be fed the milk of the word until they grow spiritually enough to receive the meat of the word. However, since all they hear are salvation messages, they aren't even getting any milk much less meat. As a result, they remain babies and continue to act like babies most of their Christian lives.
Since salvation messages frequently try to call the sinner's attention to his sins, Christians are constantly reminded of their past sinfulness and exhorted to repent along with the sinners. As a result, they see themselves as just saved sinners instead of new creations in Christ Jesus. They are also constantly reminded of their unworthiness of the grace of God and see themselves as unworthy creatures instead of saints. God wants his children to see themselves as he sees them through the blood of Christ. He sees them as priests and kings; as crucified with Christ and already seated with Christ; and as dear children. His children are blessed because he will not impute sin unto them. He removed the instrument of condemnation so that there would be nothing to condemn them.
The Holy Spirit only spoke of what was wrong with most Baptist preaching that day, and not of what was wrong with Baptist tradition. He had long before showed me the primary errors in Baptist tradition. I use the word tradition rather than doctrine because Baptist doctrine is very simple. The main tenants are: "salvation by grace", "the priesthood of the believer", "the Bible as the only authority of faith and practice", and "believer baptism by immersion". Since the essential doctrines are so few, Baptists vary considerable from Primitive Baptists, to Missionary Baptists, to Freewill Baptists. Even though a person continues to hold these doctrines, if he steps outside the Baptist tradition, he is usually quickly rejected.
Some Baptists would include "eternal security" as one of their essential doctrines, but the Freewill Baptists would certainly disagree with that. Given this, most Baptists hold two traditions which are in error: The tradition of extreme eternal security and the tradition that every person receives the Holy Spirit at regeneration. It is obvious to most Baptists how other denominations will base their pet doctrines on selected scriptures and reject other scriptures that contradict them. As a result, the scripture is not rightly divided and erroneous doctrines are developed. Yet when it comes to these two traditions, Baptists become guilty of the very same transgression. I have already addressed the error in the tradition that a person receives the Holy Spirit when he is saved, so only the error of extreme eternal security remains to be addressed.
Extreme eternal security is frequently called "once saved always saved". It states that once a person is (truly) saved, then he cannot become lost. The grace of God is sufficient to cover all sin and nothing the person does will cause God to reject that person. There is much truth in this doctrine, but it is not entirely true. In the body of Christ, we see a ditch on both sides of the road when it comes to the believer's security. The Baptist tradition of extreme eternal security constitutes one of these ditches. The other ditch is held by many Pentecostals who believe that a saved person becomes lost if he sins and must be saved all over again. The truth lies much closer to the first ditch rather than the latter.
I once was told by a preacher that there are twenty five passages in the Bible that refute extreme eternal security. Although I have never counted them, I know there are quite a few. Except in the cases of parables, allegory, or symbolism, the Bible should generally be taken literally. There are many conditional clauses in the New Testament that are there because the subject is conditional. It doesn't make sense to use a conditional clause when no such condition exists. It makes no sense for me to tell my daughter, "If you go to Mars, stop off at the moon", if there is no possibility of her going to Mars. Likewise, if there is no possibility of departing from grace, then many statements in the Bible make no sense. I hope you realize that God does not include senseless statements in the scripture.
Wherein is the middle of the road when it comes to eternal security? Briefly stated, all those that want to be kept secure will be, and those who want to depart may do so if they have reached spiritual maturity. This principle is not only spelled out in the scripture, but also demonstrated in man's relationship with his children. A man is responsible for his children when they are immature, and cannot allow them to have complete free will. However, when they reach maturity, he cannot justly deprive them of free will. God likewise cannot allow a spiritually immature Christian to have complete free will and depart from grace when he isn't spiritually mature enough to realize the consequences of his actions. Once a Christian has become spiritually mature, God cannot justly prevent a Christian from departing from grace if he chooses to do so.
Just as salvation is a choice and not based on a person's worthiness, departing from grace is also a choice and is not based on a person's sinfulness. God lists the conditions for spiritual maturity in Hebrews 6:4-6. The impossibility mentioned there is not departing from grace, but restoration to grace if a person does depart. In this one passage, we see both ditches refuted. The "sin willfully" spoken of in Hebrews 10:25-31 is the sin of a person turning his will from light back to darkness. It is clearly illustrated by the phrase "and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing". The mature Christian who counts the best that God has to offer as an unholy thing has definitely turned his will away from God and back to darkness. II Peter 2:20-22 describes this as, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again."
God will not cast anyone out, but he must allow a mature Christian the free will to choose to depart. God's keeping power and desire to keep his children is so strongly declared in the scripture, it's easy to see how a person could get in the ditch of extreme eternal security. Peter Cartwright, an old-time Methodist minister, scoffed at the idea that God would allow a sinner free will, and then take it away from a Christian. Since being made partakers of the Holy Ghost (i.e. receiving the Holy Ghost) is a requirement for spiritual maturity, most Baptists remain spiritual children and do indeed have a type of extreme eternal security. But no one should want to remain a child all their life, just to keep from being held accountable as an adult.
God wants his children free from both guilt and fear. Knowing that our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus should remove any guilt, and knowing that we are eternally secure as long as we choose to be, should remove any fear of missing heaven. The only requirement to enter heaven is that our name be recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life. He wants his children to know that they have passed from death unto light and that their names are written in heaven so that they can have peace about their eternal destiny. However, it is obvious from Revelation 3:5, that some people's names will be blotted out of the Book of Life, but it will be because of their choice and not God's. God is not willing that anyone should perish, but he will not supercede the sinner's will to save him, or the spiritually mature Christian's will to keep him. God himself must remain just in all of his actions, and he would have to be unjust to supercede either of these wills.
Someone might ask, "Do many people depart from grace?" Based on my observations, there are very few who do. I have never personally known anyone who was a spiritually mature Christian and chose to go back to the world and count the blood of Jesus an unholy thing. I know many spiritually immature Christians who are so worldly that the only reason that you count them to be Christians is because of their testimony. Even though immaturity is not God's will for them, I am persuaded that if they truly belong to him that he will keep them. They are not in as much danger as the spiritually mature Christian who thinks that he can walk with God and play around with sin. Grace is a free gift which cannot be taken away, but it can be willfully given up.