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FAQ # 59
QUESTION 59 : 1 Timothy 4:1 states, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly,
that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed
to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;” meaning that some ‘saints’
left the faith or in essence, lost their salvation. Isn’t that so?
This
doesn’t necessary mean that 1. The persons lost their salvation or 2.
That the persons in question had salvation.
Paul
was very verbose in his letters and narrations, whereby he could have
said about someone as Peter, “when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood
him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Because, “when I [Paul]
saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel,
I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after
the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the
Gentiles to live as do the Jews?” (Gal 2:11, 14).
Not
that Peter was teaching this, but because he was sent to the circumcision
and Paul to the Gentiles (Gal 2:7), he fearing he might not reach them
if they saw him eating with the Gentiles. Nonetheless, we see Paul’s tone
of voice and often articulation, which was expressed in this verse, “O
foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you” (Gal 3:1): With indirect reference
to Peter, whom he said was to be blamed for it in Antioch (Gal 2:11).
Now,
was Peter or Barnabas going to lose their inheritance by indirectly allowing
some Jewish Christians to initially not associate with Gentiles? Of course
not! Similarly, in 1 Timothy 4, some men might have been teaching some
things that Christ came and redeem us from, that’s why he admonish Timothy
to “refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather
unto godliness” (1 Tim 4:7). Old wives fables usually generate from Tradition,
in this case traditions of the law.
Secondly,
if they were teaching things that weren’t even along the lines of tradition
but outright satanic, then they might not have been saved before and manifest
this by cleaving to this kind of teaching; “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly,
that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed
to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy;
having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim 4:1).
If
they suddenly walked with the body with all it’s orthodoxy and then fall
away in the category of perverse teachings, then they probably
weren’t saved; something Peter never did. I can say that because the scripture
said, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they
had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went
out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us” (1
John 2:19). In other words, they left because they weren’t truly born
into the body of Christ, that is, born again. And if others go with them
they too weren’t saved, expressed in this verse by Jesus, “Let them alone:
they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both
shall fall into the ditch” (Matt 15:14). The “blind” (unsaved hypocrites)
will pull away the “blind” (other unsaved hypocrites) from the true flock
and both shall fall in the ditch. That’s why God allows false teaching,
to purge the true flock. And that’s why John could have said, “We are
of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth
not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error” (1
John 4:6).
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