Do Paul’s Warnings Preserve Believers from Falling Away?

Paul warns his congregations against sinning and embracing false doctrines. To do so might jeopardize their faith. But do his warnings actually preserve believers from falling away? Some biblical interpreters argue that the warnings are used as a means by which God brings about perseverance among Christ’s followers:

“When I hear the threats and warnings of Scripture, I take them seriously… If I apostatize, I will be cursed and experience the fierce wrath of God eternally. I tremble at such a prospect… It reminds me that I must persevere in the faith to be saved… I find that the warning provokes me to follow the Lord more ardently… The net result, therefore, is that my assurance is strengthened because I see by my response to the warning that I am truly part of the church of Christ.”*

These authors claim that such warnings merely “express what is capable of being conceived in the mind. They speak of things conceivable or imaginable, not of things likely to happen.”** Similarly, in 1 Corinthians, another interpreter claims: “Paul believes that his apostolic warnings are themselves a means by which the Corinthians will be preserved by God for future glory.”***

I consider it more appropriate to say that, within the spectrum of his letters, Paul hopes that his converts will persevere, and he gives them his assurances and warnings to that effect. Warnings must be believed and appropriated to be efficacious. This means that those who hear his words (including converts) may or may not take heed to them. The warnings and assurances, then, do not necessarily result in perseverance. Let’s look at the issue more closely.

Paul’s Assurances and Warnings

Four points are worth making regarding Paul’s assurances and warnings.

1. There is nothing intrinsic about Paul’s words that necessitate they will always be believed and carried out by every believer who hears them

Paul indeed affirms or implies both assurances of futuristic salvation to his congregation members, and yet he warns them of its forfeiture as well. On Paul’s assurances, see, for example, 1 Cor 1:6–9; 10:13; Rom 8:28–39; 1 Thess 5:23–24; Phil 1:6 [unless this one is merely related to the Philippians’ financial gift]). On his warnings, see e.g., Gal 5:2–4; 5:19–21; Rom 8:13; 11:22; 14:15b; 1 Cor 3:16–17; 8:9–13; 10:1–12; 2 Cor 6:1; 11:2–4; 13:5; Col 1:21–23.

Both the assurances and warnings seek to encourage believers to continue in—or return to—righteous belief and conduct. But such communication by Paul provides no guarantee that all these believers will lay hold of the assurances and/or obey the warnings.

To be sure, God’s grace takes effect in Paul’s efforts in 1 Cor 15:10, and this idea may be in need of further exploration with reference to divine and human agencies.**** To this end, John M. G. Barclay’s studies have shown that grace may be unconditioned, but that does not mean it is unconditional (Barclay, Paul and the Gift, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 562; cf. 223; Oropeza “Is God’s Love Unconditional or Unconditioned?”). In other words, incongruent grace epitomized by the Christ-gift is given to us free of prior conditions and without regard to our worth—it is unconditioned. However, it is not unconditional. It is not free from expectations that the recipient will offer some sort of “return” for this gift. God expects a type of reciprocity, such as our gratitude and obedience.

As Barclay rightly affirms, grace may be received in vain, and the objects of grace can fall from it (2 Cor 6:1; Gal 5:4). Put differently, for such a person, “the ‘in Christ’ relationship will cease, or has already ceased” (Barclay, “Gift Perspective Reply to Respondents,” in Scot McKnight and B. J. Oropeza, Perspectives on Paul: Five Views, Grand Rapids: Baker, 2020: 254). I would add that, sadly, humans, inclusive of wayward believers, are free to say “no” to grace. They can reject and resist the divinely given gift.

2. Biblical evidence supports that warnings do not always result in perseverance

There is evidence in the Pauline corpus and elsewhere that believers and the people of God do in fact fall away. And it is hard to imagine that they were never warned before doing so. In 2 Cor 11:29, for example, Paul writes regarding his hardships in relation to the burden of caring for his congregations. He writes, “Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is made to fall away (σκανδαλίζεται) and I am not indignant?” ⁺ No doubt, these former believers who fell away did so despite Paul’s warnings and words of assurance to them, especially if he has the Corinthians foremost in mind here. He had warned them in previous letters and surely admonished them repeatedly when with them for 18 months (cf. Acts 18:1–18). In his earlier letter, he warned that weak believers might fall away and be destroyed due to the unloving freedoms of the strong members (1 Cor 8:9–13). Tragically, some of these members might be the ones whom Paul writes about in 2 Cor 11:29.

As well, in Acts, Paul is formerly remembered as a persecutor who would get Christ-followers to “blaspheme,” that is, denounce Christ and repudiate trust in him (Acts 26:11; cf. 1 Cor 12:3a). Elsewhere in the Pauline corpus, it is possible that those whom Paul weeps over, whose current conduct shows them to be enemies of the cross of Christ, are yet another example of apostate believers (Phil 3:17–19). Hymenaeus, Alexander, Philetus, and perhaps Paul’s former missionary colleague, Demas, are further examples of those who believed but then abandoned faith (1 Tim 1:19–20; 2 Tim 2:17–18; 4:10). Are we to assume that all these individuals were never warned, or conversely, never assured of their salvation, prior to their apostasies?

The speech to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 is another example. Despite warning them, even with tears, for the three years Paul was in Ephesus, he anticipates that some among them will teach perverted things and draw away congregation members after them (Acts 20:29–31). Whether these are the apostle’s remembered words or Lukan improvisation, Ephesus appears to be a place remembered as one in which believers did not always take heed to apostolic warnings. People such as Hymenaeus, Alexander, and Philetus are prime examples of this. If in the latter days some would fall away from the faith (1 Tim 4:1 cf. 2 Thess 2:3), men such as these seemed to be among the firstfruits of this forecast.

As a Jew who knew Israel’s Scriptures well, Paul understood that despite the many warnings and assurances given to the people of God, whether through Moses or the prophets, Israel still committed apostasy and suffered exile. Similarly, Paul currently grieves that many Israelites stand in salvific jeopardy without Jesus Messiah (Rom 9:1–5; 10:1–4; 11:28). He warns that the same loss could happen to gentile Christ-believers, too (Rom 11:13–24). Doubtless, he hopes that such would not happen, but he also knows that it did happen to many of his own people.

A final biblical example related to this are the wilderness traditions that Paul alludes to in 1 Cor 10:1–12. In those traditions, Israel for the most part did not pay attention to God’s repeated chastisements and warnings via Moses. Thus, many rebelled and were destroyed even though they were “baptized into Moses” and experienced the grace of God via spiritual sustenance in the wilderness. Through this example (a hypothetical prefiguration), Paul warns the Corinthians that a comparable apostasy and punishment might happen to some of them.

We unfortunately have many examples of Christians in later decades and centuries, too, who were almost surely encouraged and warned through their ministers, churches, and the presumed hearing of Scripture, but then fell away due to such things as persecutions and heresies (see examples in Stephen G. Wilson, Leaving the Fold: Apostates and Defectors in Antiquity; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004; and a history of interpretation in B. J. Oropeza, Paul and Apostasy, pp. 1–34).

Now of course, these examples of apostasy do not mean that Paul’s warnings and assurances have no power. I’m sure that such admonitions have helped prevent (and continue to help prevent) many, many believers from going astray! They are efficacious when believed. The problem is that they are not always believed and appropriated.

3. There is evidence of Paul’s own fear that his converts might fall away

For Paul’s own candid apprehension that his converts might apostatize, we find examples in 1 Thess 3:5; Gal 4:8–11; 2 Cor 11:3–4; and 12:20–21. Paul’s confession of fear in such cases would seem to be unfounded if he personally believed his exhortations prevented the very thing he feared. A more plausible explanation in this regard is that Paul’s fear was well-founded since he knew that Christ-followers can and do fall away despite the exhortations and encouragement they might hear, whether from him or others.

4. Those who fall away were never truly saved in the first place?

I frequently hear from time to time the claim that those who fall away in Paul’s letters or elsewhere in the NT were never truly saved believers in the first place. And that may be why they do not take heed to the warnings. Those who support this line of reasoning almost always seem to use 1 John 2:19 as their proof text.⁺⁺ The most astounding thing about this claim is that these interpreters apparently cannot find such a text in Paul, and so they must go to John to support what they want Paul to say! We should avoid taking the Johannine author’s claim about defectors in his own community and imposing this on Paul and his communities. Paul’s congregations and apostates may be quite different than what the Johannine author faced about a generation after Paul. Put differently, there is no reason to assume their congregations faced the same situations so as to universalize 1 John 2:19 as the panacea explanation for all types of apostasies in Paul, let alone the entire New Testament.

Moreover, even though John speaks of inauthentic believers in relation to his own community’s situation, not even the Johannine Jesus seems to interpret all apostates as fake believers. For example, the metaphorical branch that was cast out of the vine of Christ, at one time did abide in Christ if this extended metaphor is to make proper sense (John 15:1–6). Also, repeated in John but in different words, is Jesus’s warning to his followers that the one who denies Christ in order to save his physical life will lose eternal life (John 12:25; cf. Matt 10:39; 16:25–26; Mark 8:35–37; Luke 9:24–26; see B. J. Oropeza, In the Footsteps of Judas and Other Defectors: The Gospels, Acts, and Johannine Letters, ApNTC 1; Eugene: Cascasd, 2011, ad loc).

Apostasy is complex, and we do an injustice to an author’s situation by interpreting it through another author’s situation. In 2 Pet 2:1–22, the apostates were once genuinely redeemed by Christ. Passages in Hebrews likewise affirm this type of reading but seem to offer no hope of restoration for those who fell away (Heb 6:1–8 ; 10:26–29; 12:15–17). James and Jude do seem to offer the hope of restoration for apostates and transgressors, as does Paul (James 5:19–20; Jude 22–23; Gal 6:1; 1 Cor 5:5; cf. Rom 11:1–32). Each community in Christ faced different challenges, different types of sin, different oppositional teachings, and different types of defectors. Some defectors might have been genuine believers, some might have been fake; some might be restored, others perhaps not (for the entire NT, see B. J. Oropeza, Apostasy in the New Testament Communities [ApNTC], 3 vols.; Eugene: Cascade, 2011–12).

Paul regards the auditors in his letters as genuine believers. He calls the Corinthians, for example, saints (“holy ones”), fellow believers who are brothers and sisters in Christ, and who are justified, sanctified, and have God’s Spirit (1 Cor 1:2, 10–11, 26; 6:11; etc.). And yet despite being true believers, they are in danger of falling from salvific grace (1 Cor 10:12; 2 Cor 6:1). Similarly, the Galatians are also true believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ. They were delivered from sin and the present evil age; they have God’s Spirit (Gal 1:4, 11; 3:1–5). And yet they, too, are in danger of falling away from salvific grace (Gal 5:4) and, due to committing vices, they might not inherit God’s kingdom (Gal 5:19–21; 6:7–9). If some of these believers were to fall away, whatever else Paul might claim, it would seem to be entirely inconsistent for him to say that they were all never truly believers in the first place.⁺⁺⁺

Paul Can Assure Those Who are in Union with Christ of Their Ultimate Salvation, so long as They Remain “in Christ”

Do Paul’s warnings, then, preserve believers from falling away? Yes, they do, but not always. Given the spectrum of Pauline letters, Paul’s assurances show that he hopes that his auditors will persevere to the finality of salvation. The texts with Paul’s confidence in their perseverance should be tempered with the texts from the four points I just made.

God surely does use Paul’s messages to bring about the desired effect of salvation and perseverance, but those messages must be believed and appropriated to be efficacious. Resistance, disobedience, unbelief, and egregious sins are realities that even those who have shown faith sometimes might unfortunately embrace. Such things prompt disastrous consequences, sometimes inclusive of apostasy.

Even so, when Paul rises to the rhetorical level of showing strong confidence in his auditors, it is with good reason. Christ-believers are indeed assured that nothing can separate them from the love of God according to Romans 8:38–39. That is because they are in Christ (Rom 8:1), and if they are in union with Christ, there is for them no condemnation—they can claim such profound promises.

However, in Romans 8, Paul also writes that those who are in Christ (“you”) might choose to live after the sinful nature (the “flesh”) instead of the Spirit. If they do so, they will die being separated from Christ (Rom 8:13). It is vitally important, then, that individual believers who are in Christ see to it that they remain in Christ. They must persevere in faith and righteous living if they are to inherit all the salvific promises ahead. If this ever seems to be too daunting of an aim, Paul also encourages them that they have the Holy Spirit to empower them.

Notes

 * Thomas R. Schreiner and Ardel B. Caneday, The Race Set Before Us: A Biblical Theology of Perseverance and Assurance (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002), 309.

** Schreiner and Caneday, Race Set Before Us, 207; cf. esp. 38–45, 212–13.

 *** Andrew Wilson, Warning-Assurance in 1 Corinthians. WUNT 2:452 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2017), pp. 167–68 (italics in the original). Notice also p. 184: “Paul sees his warnings as the divinely appointed means by which God, who is at work in the Corinthians by his Spirit, will ensure that they continue in faith and holiness.” This author sometimes references and critiques my work, B. J. Oropeza, Paul and Apostasy: Eschatology, Perseverance, and Falling Away in the Corinthian Congregation. WUNT 2:115 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000). However, I more thoroughly address perseverance and apostasy in Paul’s letters (including 1 Corinthians) in B. J. Oropeza, Jews, Gentiles, and the Opponents of Paul: The Pauline Letters. Apostasy in the New Testament Communities [ApNTC], vol. 2 (Eugene: Cascade, 2012). Although Wilson focuses only on 1 Corinthians, a better perspective on Paul’s warnings would have been gained by reading more thoroughly through my latter work. There I clarify, beyond the rhetorical rapport that Paul attempts to gain in 1 Cor 1:6–9, that those who are in union with Christ (“in Christ”) are assured of final salvation, and yet Paul could warn individuals among the community in Christ that this salvation is not a done deal. They, like all individual believers in Christ whom Paul assures, must remain “in Christ” (Jews, Gentiles, Opponents, pp. 72–73, 173). In other words, the rhetorical argument is not my only explanation for understanding Paul’s assurances with his warnings.

**** As suggested by Victor Furnish, in his review of Wilson, “Warning-Assurance” (particularly the latter on p. 169), Review of Biblical Literature 01/2020.

+ On σκανδαλίζω as falling away/apostasy, see e.g., 1 Cor 8:13; Matt 13:21; 24:10; Mark 4:17; 14:27, 29; Luke 17:2; John 16:1.

++ See, for example, Dillon T. Thornton attempts to explain away my cases of apostasy in Paul this way in his review of my book, “Jews, Gentiles, and the Opponents of Paul,” in Bulletin for Biblical Research 23 (2013), 134–35. I cannot help but surmise that such a reading seems influenced by systematic theology. Why not let Paul speak for himself instead of John speaking for him?

+++ Paul does have a category for counterfeit believers (Gal 2:4; 2 Cor 11:4–5). These are the type of false preachers and teachers who attempt to lead others astray. There is no indication that they ever embraced the truth at one time. They are not quite the same type of individuals, then, as the Christ-followers in Corinth, or Demas, who at one time were in the right way but then went astray from it.