The vitriol on both sides of this argument has been extreme at times. Both sides have accused the other of being unfaithful to the gospel and thus, to the Apostolic bequest to the Church. Who is right? Can one lose his/her salvation by sinning? Or is a Christian eternally secure regardless of consequent actions? What does the Early Church teach us about this important subject?
St. Clement of Rome, in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, tells us how one can escape the judgment of God.
Since then all things are seen and heard [by God], let us fear Him, and forsake those wicked works which proceed from evil desires; so that, through His mercy, we may be protected from the judgments to come. For whither can any of us flee from His mighty hand? [ANF 1: 12; ch. XXVIII]
How can we enjoy eternal life, then, St. Clement?
Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those that wait for Him, in order that we may share in His promised gifts. But how, beloved, shall this be done? If our understanding be fixed by faith towards God; if we earnestly seek the things which are pleasing and acceptable to Him; if we do the things which are in harmony with His blameless will; and if we follow the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and iniquity, along with all covetousness, strife, evil practices, deceit, whispering, and evil-speaking, all hatred of God, pride and haughtiness, vainglory and ambition. For they that do such things are hateful to God; and not only they that do them, but also those that take pleasure in them that do them. [ANF 1: 14; ch XXXV]
Bishop Polycarp, who suffered martyrdom, writes in his Epistle to the Philippians:
If we please Him in this present world, we shall receive also the future world, according as He has promised to us that He will raise us again from the dead, and that if we live worthily of Him, “we shall also reign together with Him,” provided only we believe. [ANF 1: 34; ch. V]
In the Epistle of Barnabas, the writer makes it very clear that he believes it is possible to lose one’s salvation by indulging in sin.
We ought therefore, brethren, carefully to inquire concerning our salvation, lest the wicked one, having made his entrance by deceit, should hurl us forth from our [true] life. [ANF 1: 138; ch. 2]
Justin Martyr in Dialogue with Trypho makes it very clear that the possibility of losing salvation is real.
And I hold, further, that such as have confessed and known this man to be Christ, yet who have gone back from some cause to the legal dispensation, and have denied that this man is Christ, and have repented not before death, shall by no means be saved. [ANF 1: 218; ch. XLVII]
St. Irenaeus of Lyons makes a similar point in Against Heresies:
We ought not, therefore, as that presbyter remarks, to be puffed up, nor be severe upon those of old time, but ought ourselves to fear, lest perchance, after [we have come to] the knowledge of Christ, if we do things displeasing to God, we obtain no further forgiveness of sins, but be shut out from His kingdom. And therefore it was that Paul said, “For if [God] spared not the natural branches, [take heed] lest He also spare not thee, who, when thou wert a wild olive tree, wert grafted into the fatness of the olive tree, and wert made a partaker of its fatness.” [ANF 1: 499; ch. XXVII; sect. 2]
And later in the same chapter he says the following in reference to I Corinthians 6: 9-10:
And as it was not to those who are without that he said these things, but to us, lest we should be cast forth from the kingdom of God, by doing any such thing, he proceeds to say, “And such indeed were ye; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the Spirit of our God.” And just as then, those who led vicious lives, and put other people astray, were condemned and cast out, so also even now the offending eye is plucked out, and the foot and the hand, lest the rest of the body perish in like manner. [ANF 1: 500, ch. XXVII, sect. 4]
One would be hard pressed to read any sort of eternal security into the foregoing passages. In fact, the only way to do so would be to twist the passage beyond recognition.
The Didache also shows us the early belief of the Church was decidedly against eternal security.
But often shall ye come together, seeking the things which are befitting to your souls: for the whole time of your faith will not profit you, if ye be not made perfect in the last time. [ANF 7: 382; ch. XVI; sect. 2]
Clement of Alexandria in Who is the Rich Man that shall be saved? speaks to the same subject.
Forgiveness of past sins, then, God gives; but of future, each one gives to himself. And this is to repent, to condemn the past deeds, and beg oblivion of them from the Father, who only of all is able to undo what is done, by mercy proceeding from Him, and to blot out former sins by the dew of the Spirit. “For by the state in which I find you will I judge,” also, is what in each case the end of all cries aloud. So that even in the case of one who has done the greatest good deeds in his life, but at the end has run headlong into wickedness, all his former pains are profitless to him, since at the catastrophe of the drama he has given up his part; while it is possible for the man who formerly led a bad and dissolute life, on afterwards repenting, to overcome in the time after repentance the evil conduct of a long time. [ANF 2: 602, ch. XL]
In the Anonymous Treatise on Re-Baptism, we find the following unambiguous denial of eternal security.
As this word “whosoever,” also in the sentence of confession, most fully shows us that no condition of the confessor himself can stand in the way, although he may have been before a denier, or a heretic, or a hearer, or one who is beginning to hear, who has not yet been baptized or converted from heresy to the truth of the faith, or one who has departed from the Church and has afterwards returned, and then when he returned, before the bishop’s hands could be laid upon him, being apprehended, should be compelled to confess Christ before men; even as to one who again denies Christ, no special ancient dignity can be effectual to him for salvation. For any one of us will hold it necessary, that whatever is the last thing to be found in a man in this respect, is that whereby he must be judged, all those things which he has previously done being wiped away and obliterated. [ANF 5: 674; chs. 12-13]
Tertullian can certainly not be classed in the Reformed camp as the following will show.
God had foreseen also other weaknesses incident to the condition of man,—the stratagems of the enemy, the deceptive aspects of the creatures, the snares of the world; that faith, even after baptism, would be endangered; that the most, after attaining unto salvation, would be lost again, through soiling the wedding-dress, through failing to provide oil for their torchlets—would be such as would have to be sought for over mountains and woodlands, and carried back upon the shoulders. [ANF 3: 639; Scorpiace; ch. VI]
We will close with a lengthy quote from St. Cyprian’s epistle To Rogatianus the Presbyter, and the Other Confessors. A.D. 250. Again, he leaves us with no doubt as the his position on the security of salvation.
Yet I exhort you by our common faith, by the true and simple love of my heart towards you, that, having overcome the adversary in this first encounter, you should hold fast your glory with a brave and persevering virtue. We are still in the world; we are still placed in the battle-field; we fight daily for our lives. Care must be taken, that after such beginnings as these there should also come an increase, and that what you have begun to be with such a blessed commencement should be consummated in you. It is a slight thing to have been able to attain anything; it is more to be able to keep what you have attained; even as faith itself and saving birth makes alive, not by being received, but by being preserved. Nor is it actually the attainment, but the perfecting, that keeps a man for God. The Lord taught this in His instruction when He said, “Behold, thou art made whole; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Conceive of Him as saying this also to His confessor, “Lo thou art made a confessor; sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.” Solomon also, and Saul, and many others, so long as they walked in the Lord’s ways, were able to keep the grace given to them. When the discipline of the Lord was forsaken by them, grace also forsook them.
To espouse the doctrine of unconditional eternal security, one has to discount or ignore the teachings of the Early Church Fathers. In fact, there are many more passages and many more writers that could be quoted to prove beyond a doubt that this doctrine was not taught by the Early Church. To deny this, one has to be incredibly ignorant or impossibly arrogant.
