Though, we might refer to them in our ignorance as the saved, they are anything but. Obviously, anyone can make a profession of faith and live for a time with external evidence of the work of redemption in their lives and yet still be without the work of grace. Part of the flaw in the slogan's respect is the preponderance of the contemporary understanding of being "saved." While salvation is a very biblical notion and Scripture does point out that man must be saved, believers too often view this as an effect of a profession of faith rather than the result of God's work of grace.
As well, we are not speaking of any statement or decision a man could make. When we speak of perseverance, we are really speaking of God's faithfulness rather than man's. As well, when God deems to recreate a man in the image of Christ, he begins the creative work and is faithful to complete it in his time despite the work's potential inclinations to the opposite. So powerful is the blood of Christ that all sins of those that God ordains it to cover are washed in their entirety. The effect of Christ's blood in redemption is complete. Because men are saved by grace and not works, the sinful works of men are no great obstacle if God wishes to recreate a man into the image of his Son. When we speak of the perseverance of the saints, we are, in the first place, speaking not of any power within the grasp or intention of men who believe but rather of the strength of God's own redemptive and recreative work. Instead, let's look at the doctrine to which the slogan makes reference. It is likely that this slogan (like most slogans) was created for a very particular purpose, but has long since (again, like most slogans) outgrown that purpose. One might as well say, "Once one has eternal life, he shall always have eternal life." This is obvious by the very definition of eternal life and so, the slogan teaches us nothing of value. As well, the slogan is tautological in its simplicity, so that in being inherently true on its face, it is unable to say anything of value. In fact, the slogan doesn't give us enough information to properly judge its merits.
This is based upon the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, but skews the doctrine by only representing a portion of its teaching. Take for instance, the present slogan-Once Saved, Always Saved. Thayer's Greek Lexicon notes that Paul is presenting the figure of an athlete who trains himself, taking charge of his body, abstaining from "unwholesome foods, wine, and sexual indulgence" that he might perform at the peak of his potential prowess.įirst of all, slogans like "Once Saved, Always Saved" are always regrettable because they polarize an issue, causing them to be touted or denounced vehemently not on the basis of truth as truth is, but only as it is represented in the stark world of sloganeering. While Paul could be making reference to an Aristotalean sort of ethic of moderation here, it is more likely that the phrase translated here as "temperate in all things" should be better rendered as "wholly self-controlled" or "entirely self-disciplined." Several alternative translations favour this reading of the text. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown ( 1 Corinthians 9:25). This is an inaccurate representation of the perspective summarized in the popular phrase.īut what about Scripture? Though there is no direct quotation matching the proverb, Paul does use a similar idea in his description of the successful athlete:Īnd everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. It is frequently reasoned by those unfamiliar with context that the common phrase means that a person should approach all things (whether healthy or unhealthy) with moderation therefore, reasoning that a moderate amount of a bad thing can be indulged is not uncommon to find. It should be noted that Aristotle's ethic is often misunderstood by its summary: moderation in all things. An example of this would be his presentation of courage being the happy medium between the extreme of rash action and the deficiency of cowardice, in respect to a person's possible action in the face of danger. His ethic works around finding the mean, or middle ground, between excess and deficiency. The phrase, "Moderation in all things," is common extrapolation of Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean (as presented in his Nicomachean Ethics).