Here at Athanasian Reformed we often talk about soteriology; indeed, as a nexus interlinked with a whole host of other theological loci, within a theological taxis (order). I was once again reminded by someone on X/Twitter that not everyone thinks these matters through the inner-theological reality present within the warp and woof of Holy Scripture; they simply skim the outer-textual-top and think they have somehow penetrated the marrow therein. But as is the case, the biblical marrow is only gotten at when the reader understands the Bible’s res (reality): i.e., Jesus Christ. When Scripture is “exegeted” through a Ramist place logic, logico-deductive schemata (as TF Torrance refers to Ramism), the purported exegete ends up with a text that thinks in abstraction, and out of a disordered order vis-à-vis its triune givenness as that has been provided for by God’s Self-exegesis/interpretation of Himself in Jesus Christ (cf. I John 1:18). As TF Torrance rightly notes (paraphrase): the context of the text of Holy Scripture is Jesus Christ. Since this is the case (without elaborating on what that entails), to read Scripture from within a center in yourself, as law-based, Augustinian based readings tend to do, is to disregard the clear Dominical teaching that Jesus Himself is God’s center for us; and it is within this relational/dialogical center wherein Scripture comes to have contextual-canonical referent and meaning.
Here is the post, on X/Twitter that reminded me of how important it is to have a properly formed, genuinely Christian biblical hermeneutic:
Romans 4:5 the verse abused by unemployed salvationists who think it means u can be ungodly have faith & never have works & be saved satan loves fooling ppl who want to cling to their flesh bcuz they can’t discern scripture talking about how the old covenant law can’t save [sic]
This Xr’s handle is @ osasisHERESY (i.e., once saved always saved is heresy). I’m simply snagging this guy’s assertion, about salvation, because it serves exemplary for how many many people think salvation (at least as that gets expressed online, and even in the literature). As my original tag, as I retweeted his post noted: “Doesn’t understand God’s Grace. He has separated the Person of grace from the works of grace, and placed the works of grace on us rather than Christ. Historically this is known as moralistic Pelagianism.” This poster’s thinking is really a subset of a larger soteriological frame that Latin (Western) Christianity has inherited, at pervasive levels; whether that be Catholic or Protestant iterations.
What I want to do with the rest of this post is use Luke 15, and the famous Dominical teaching, therein, on the prodigal son. I want to offer two different frames, and show how those frames, as the interpretive lenses, respectively, bear on an exegetical conclusion relative to the topic at hand. That is: “when someone is genuinely born again of an imperishable seed, is it possible to then lose this imperishable seed (as our poster on X asserts is the case)?” Depending on what the frame is, that is used to read the prodigal son story, will lead to variant theological-exegetical conclusions. As will become evident, what I am doing with Luke 15 ends up being something like a theological thought experiment; with the intention of illustrating how a broader understanding of soteriological theory is working within the canonical text of Holy Scripture. That is to say, I am not attempting to maximally prove from our passage that a so-called ‘once-saved-always-saved’ frame is indeed the frame present within a reading of Luke 15. Instead, more minimally, I am using the prodigal son narrative to suggestively illustrate what a law-based reading of salvation looks like juxtaposed with what I will call a familial (which could also be called filial or marital, by way of other biblical analogies/realities). The Christologically conditioned hermeneutic I am attempting to illustrate, through engagement with Luke 15, comes from a depth dimensional or deeper engagement with the context of the text of Holy Scripture, as that is provided for by the Christ. That is the aim of my post: to suggestively illustrate, at a theological level, that if the so-called prodigal son was in a work-release program set by his judge (father), then a so-called once-saved-always-saved frame (which our X poster calls “hyper grace”) would indeed, end up being sorely deficient and errant. But if the frame is understood, even as the immediate context provides for, as a familial relationship, as a father-son relationship seemingly gone awry, then the way we read this will end up illustrating how salvation, in the Bible, should be understood, indeed, as a familial relationship wherein the relationship can never be lost (it is biological, of a supranatural level, as it were—i.e., based on the shed blood of Immanuel’s veins; we as his adopted brothers and sisters).
The Text: Luke 15.11–32, The Prodigal Son
11 And He said, “A man had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he divided his wealth between them. 13 And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. 14 Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. 17 But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’ 20 So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; 23 and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.
25 “Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him. 29 But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; 30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”
Law-Frame Reading
Let’s think our passage through a Law-Frame rather than a Familial-Frame. The Law-Frame is the frame our Xr is using to arrive at the conclusion that someone can “lose their salvation.” The Law-Frame reading of Luke 15 would set the father-son relationship up as a judge-subject-criminal relationship. The son-subject in this frame would have run away from the legal jurisdiction of his judge, and from there engage in further perverse and potentially even criminal (law-breaking) behavior. As the son-subject ran out of resources, he would attempt to go back to his judge-father seeking mercy from the court; seeking permission back into the welfare system that he had available to him prior to his criminal fleeing. But since the judge isn’t the subject’s father, there is no necessary (biological-familial) relationship present; as such a merciful, even gracious relationship is not present, leaving the subject at the court’s mercy. But the court has no latitude available to it, even it if wanted to merciful, and allow the subject back into the kingdom. The subject, because of disobedience (to stay within the boundary of the judge’s jurisdiction, the kingdom), must prove by his obedience, by his performance, that he is a trustworthy client of the kingdom; bearing fruits showing himself worthy of the conditions set forth by the kingdom and its judge, in order to be provisionally let back into the kingdom. As the subject-son came back from the far country he would have to forever meet the conditions of the kingdom, set-out by the judge, in order to stay in the kingdom; otherwise, he would be cast out of the kingdom, forever, and this based on his lack of obedience and performance before the judge and the suitors he represents in the kingdom. The whole relationship is contingent not on the judge, but on the subject’s-son’s ability and desire to keep the codes of the kingdom. Outwith that type of obedience there is no legal place for the subject to be a son of the kingdom.
Familial-Frame Reading/Judge judged
This frame requires less development, since it is the immediate frame and context of our passage in Luke 15. The father-son relationship is the frame. The son has all the resources of the father available by pure virtue of him being his father’s son. He doesn’t have to perform for them, there is no obedience required of him, he simply has these resources (to one degree or another) available to him as one who was born into his father’s family. This is most clearly evidenced by the fact that when the son chooses to rebel, and be disobedient and “squanderous” with his father’s resources (and freedoms), that the son, no matter what kingdom he is apparently living in, remains the father’s son. When the son realizes what a fool he’s been he simply goes back to his father, seeking his father’s mercy. But remember, the whole time, the whole season, he remained the father’s son; not because of who the son had chosen to become, outside the normal expectations of the family, but based on the seed of the father that remained in the son, no matter how the son performed or “dis-performed.” When the son came back to the father, the father welcomed him back as if a son from the dead. All that mattered to the father was that his son was alive, and had come home from his disobedience. None of this was based on legal conditions being met, but instead on the fact that the son was simply the son of the father by birth. Within that relationship there was nothing thicker than the blood that bonded the son and the father together, not even the son’s disobedience.
How much more then is the blood thicker than any of our disobediences that might attempt to dis-bond us from our heavenly Father? The Son’s blood, is indeed of the imperishable seed, from the indestructible life of the triune life for the world in Jesus Christ. Within God’s covenant of grace, He is first and foremost our Father; indeed, on analogy, as He was and is the Father of Israel; indeed, and Jesus ultimately being the consummate Israel of God. We are so thoroughly entwined in the life of God, at the point of His conception for us in Christ, that the idea of being dis-bonded from him, based on some sort of extra-legal apparatus simply is the possible impossibility. This goes so far to even think that the legal apparatus was enforced, as in our first scenario, and the Son enters even into that relationship, who in fact is the Judge, and becomes the Judge judged for us (as Barth so rightly emphasizes).
Conclusion
As I noted in the beginning of this little post, the appeal to Luke 15 is only a minimalistic exercise. That is to say, I recognize that in fact the actual context of Luke 15 is Jesus referring to the expansiveness of His salvation offer over against the narrowness that the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day were offering. But in an attempt to suggestively illustrate how the Prodigal Son story would have looked much different, if framed from a nomist (law-based) reading of Scripture, I have taken the liberty of reframing it in a way that showed how the story itself would have no legs, no texture within the fabric of the Second Temple Judaic period that Jesus inhabited. So, there was something much deeper than law-keeping, that went beyond the cultic practices that the Pharisees et al. had absolutized and relativized to their Jewry. God’s relationship to the Jew and Gentile alike, according to Jesus, was and is based on the “God who first loved us, that we might love Him.” And because He knew we couldn’t love Him, in and of ourselves, or ever, He forged a way for us by “becoming us that we might become Him” by the grace of adoption; He feigned not to leave us as orphans, but instead, to make us His dearly beloved sons and daughters through the vicarious humanity, and big brother love of Jesus.
My hope is that readers, even antagonistic ones, might see how the frame we read Scripture through is all important. My money is on reading Scripture through its triune reality, given for us in the face of Jesus Christ. In His reality, there is space for disobedience; this, of course, is not the ideal, but it is the reality as we continuously remain simul justus et peccator (simultaneously justified and sinner) in this in-between not yet time.
A final note: to think of salvation as once saved always saved versus not once saved always saved, per se, or vice versa, is to think the frame of salvation from completely non-biblical errant theological premises. Salvation is God for us in Jesus Christ. God is elect for us in the humanity of Jesus Christ. God is the salvation that fills the gap that we never could between us and Him. God is Father of the Son / Son of the Father in the bond of the Holy Spirit, and it is this life, this inner reality of the covenant between God and humanity, in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ, wherein life eternal is wrought and won for all. We say Yes, as an echo of God’s Yes and Amen for us, who is the Christ. When we are found in Him, we are born again of an imperishable seed, that will endure as long as the Word of God. Indeed, the Word of God is Jesus Christ, and when we come into His life, as He first came into ours, it is in this combine of life that a person becomes “eternally secure” within the Father’s big hand. Within the Father’s hand it may superficially appear that they/we are falling or have fallen, but that is only the space between the Father’s upper and lower hand; they/we haven’t nor cannot escape His hands; not because of who we are for Him, but because of who He is for us: as Father of the Son / Son of the Father.
Clearly, there are people in the world who profess Christ, but have never become “possessors” (to use an old phrase); that is, who have never become ‘spiritually’ united to Christ. But de jure, when someone genuinely has come into spiritual union with the living God through Christ, there is in fact space for disobedience. This is not the aim, or the ideal, but it is in fact the reality. Any other Gospel other than this is a No-Gospel, based on a Pelagian type of performance and continuity of law-keeping; indeed, all the days of the “performer’s” life. If someone proclaims a Gospel to you that makes the Gospel contingent on you and your performance of the Gospel, then they are proclaiming to you another Gospel; may they be anathema.