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The Daily Word of Righteousness
A Warning to the Backslider, #2
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. (II Peter 2:20,21—NIV)
Now, what does the Apostle say? Peter states: "If an individual escapes the corruption of the world by knowing Jesus, and then goes back into the world and is overcome, it would be better not to have known the way of righteousness to begin with."
The full force of this declaration is not to be diluted in any manner. The Word of God has spoken. A person who has begun on the way of righteousness (not who merely has taken the "four steps of salvation," he or she has actually started walking in righteousness), if this individual then returns to the world he is worse off than if he had never started to follow the Lord.
If the reader cannot accept the passage as it stands it would be a waste of time to continue with our essay. Our position is that the Word of God is to be taken as it stands and not cut and trimmed to fit the popular American Hollywood gospel.
In the second passage the Apostle Paul is discussing taking the Communion with an unacceptable attitude. Paul says we ought to judge ourselves, implying that we should look to see if our heart is right before we receive the body and blood of the Lord Jesus.
If we go ahead and receive the Communion elements with a wrong attitude, then God judges us and chastens us so we are not condemned with the world. At least, this is how I read it.
That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so we will not be condemned with the world. (I Corinthians 11:30-32—NIV)
This passage also is to be taken full bore. Its implications are not to be minimized in any manner. If we participate in the Communion with things in our heart that ought not to be there, God sees this. God then disciplines us to the point of sickness and death that we not come under the judgment of the sinful world.
It reminds one of Cain. He presented his offering to God. But envy and strife were in his heart, and God was not pleased with Cain's act of worship for this reason.
If we take the first passage and ignore the second, then we have a rigid formula of salvation. If the believer should be seduced back into the world he or she never should have been saved in the first place. The oversight of God and the working of the Spirit of grace are not taken into consideration. The way of Christ is not this harsh or unsympathetic.
To be continued.