Question
People possibly being saved, yet showing no real interest in studying the Bible, or talking about the Scriptures, etc.
Response
Though what you have described is not pleasant to deal with, and it certainly can cause you to wonder whether such people really are saved or not, it does not necessarily mean that such a person is not saved. Thankfully justification unto eternal life and salvation from the debt and penalty of our sins is a pure gift of God’s grace unto us, otherwise none of us ever would, or ever could, be justified and saved. As “the gospel of Christ” states.
God does not justify and save us on the basis of anything that we have done, or will do. Rather He justifies us solely on the basis of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as our all-sufficient and only Savior in connection with hearing what “the gospel of Christ” says. Therefore if someone has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as their all-sufficient Savior as per “the gospel of Christ,” then God justified and saved that person at the moment he/she believed. And that person is eternally secure in his/her justification and salvation, being made permanently “at-one” with God, just as Romans 5 teaches.
Now having justified and saved us by His grace, it is not God’s intention that we ignore Him, or disregard the provisions that He has made for us to “live unto Him” in our daily lives. For when we believed “the gospel of Christ” God not only justified and saved us, but He also sanctified us, just as Paul teaches us in Romans 6-8. Therefore God has made the provision for us to “live unto Him” in our daily lives and to participate with Him in all of the things that belong unto our sanctified position “in Christ.” And even though it is unnatural and inconsistent for any Christian to choose to ignore the further ‘riches of God’s grace’ unto him, and instead to choose to live unto himself and disregard God’s will for his life, a Christian is perfectly free to make such a choice. In accordance with both the nature of sanctification and what it is all for, a justified/saved person is free to choose to participate with God in his sanctification or not. (And this is true both in God’s program with Israel and with us today in this present dispensation.) Sanctification provides a justified/saved person with the opportunity to “live unto God” and to thereby be well-pleasing to God in how he lives and to be rewarded by God in accordance with choosing to “live unto Him” and not unto himself and the world. But it is something that God lets the justified/saved person choose whether or not he will participate in it.
Wherefore it is possible for a person to be justified/saved having believed “the gospel of Christ,” yet choose to disregard things that are part of ‘living unto God’ in his daily life. Once again, it is not the natural or consistent thing for a Christian to do; it is not God’s will for his life; but it is a choice that a Christian can make, and unfortunately many choose to make it.
Besides this there are many Christians who though they start off responding positively to their sanctified position “in Christ,” and do for a while “live unto God” in the details of their lives, eventually they lose interest in ‘living unto God’ and find greater interest in living unto themselves and with the world. Such Christians are indeed Christians, and in accordance with being justified unto eternal life they are still justified in God’s sight and ever will be. However since they no longer have respect unto the recompense of the reward of their sanctified position “in Christ,” they will suffer loss of reward at the judgment seat of Christ in accordance with their choice to live unto themselves instead.
So the upshot of what I am saying is this: the only way, of course, that we know whether anyone is justified unto eternal life or not is by whether the person says that he/she has believed “the gospel of Christ” or not. If we know that he/she has heard “the gospel of Christ” and the person says that he/she has believed it; (i.e. that he/she has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as his/her all-sufficient Savior as per the gospel); then we know that God has justified and saved the person in response to faith in Christ, regardless of what his/her life may be like. Therefore the only way for us to know for sure whether a person is justified in God’s sight is to ask the person if he has heard “the gospel of Christ” and if he has believed in the Lord Jesus Christ as his all-sufficient Savior as per that gospel. If he says “yes,” then he is justified/saved, regardless of what his life may indicate. What’s more, if he says “yes” but also is clearly bothered by you asking, (for example, by getting upset with you for asking; by taking offense at the question; by becoming perturbed or angry, etc., etc.), then not only is he justified/saved, but he is also most likely fighting against the pricking of his own conscience, seeing that he knows that he has not been ‘living unto God’ as he should.
So if you know that the people you are concerned about have heard “the gospel of Christ,” and they say, or have said that they have believed in Christ as per what “the gospel of Christ” says, then you can have confidence that they are justified/saved. If they are not ‘living unto God’ in their daily lives in accordance with the truth of their sanctification “in Christ,” then you also know that they are still justified/saved people, but that having made the choice to live unto themselves instead, they will not be rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ. And if when you ask them about their response to “the gospel of Christ” it clearly disturbs them and bothers them, even though they say that they have believed it, then you can be pretty sure that their conscience is bothering them, knowing as they do that they are not living unto God as they know they should. Hence they seek to soothe their troubled conscience by getting angry at the mention of those things that prick their conscience.
Keith Blades
Enjoy The Bible Ministries
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