Spring 1996

PREFACE

By: Michael Tao

I worked in a Christian hospital in Hong Kong, with 95% of the staff were professed Christians; I have never come across one who denied the doctrine of the eternal security of the believers. However the situation in North America is quite different.

A few years earlier I asked a pastor friend which denominations rejected the doctrine of believer's eternal security. He pointed out that it was not uncommon that American Christian churches rejected such teaching, for example, Lutheran and Salvation Army in general believe a Christian can lose his salvation because of sin.

The next day I headed for a different Baptist church to visit. There was a prayer meeting in the evening. My friend that pastored that church told me that a Christian family was settling down in their area, they had been attending his church and would like to join his church. I certainly thought it was a good news. After the prayer meeting, this Christian couple were invited to have tea in my pastor friend's home, and I was there. During the conversation, I discovered this gentleman had a rich knowledge of the Bible. Everything seemed to be fine, until I asked him what church he used to belong to. He said the Salvation Army, then all of my alarms came on. So I asked him if he believed in eternal security. He said he believed Christian had to use works to secure their salvation. He supported his argument by quoting Philippians 2:12,13 that we have to "work out" our salvation. It ended up a long but interesting evening.

Another time I met a patient, he claimed to be a Christian. However, he told me that he had lost his salvation and was waiting for eternal damnation. I asked him how this happened. He said once he had a recurrence of his disease, in a drowsy and unclear mental condition, he cursed God. Now he thought he had lost his salvation because he had committed the unpardonable sin.

We also have visitors from other churches, and they again believe Christians can lose their salvation due to sin, they would quoted Hebrews 6 to defend their wrong belief.

So within this issue, I would like to concentrate my discussion on "eternal security". I have the fear that this heresy will spread to Chinese or Asian churches from their head offices in North America.