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FAQ # 67

QUESTION  67 :  Who then is a backslider or what is backsliding?

“The moment the word ‘backsliding’ is mentioned, we immediately think of a certain kind of people – those who once joined the church and seemed to have a testimony but now absent themselves from their former Christian assembly. This may seems a little personal, but do you realize that you too, may be backsliding? some may be backslidden and not realize it.”

In researching the word backslide or backslidden, I found out that the word has no record in the New Testament. According to Strong’s, it means turning or apostasy. The dictionary defines it as a “relapse into error or bad ways.” Based on this meaning, I would say backsliding is the opposite of repentance.

Some questions then comes to mind.

When a Christian sin is he backslidden? Does this make him unjustified? Better yet, the question that you probably really want to find out is, can a born again believer who is justified, backslide?

To tell the truth, backsliding is not merely outright visible sin or transferring from an assembly within the same faith. Backsliding is any regression or moving backwards in our Christian walk.

When a Christian usually prays 20 hours a week and decreases it to 5 hours, though he or she is still in the church, involved in ministry and still possessing fellowship with God, he or she is backslidden. Leaving one’s first love as recorded in Revelation 2:4 is also backsliding; “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”

Here are some examples of backsliding:

• Occupied with service or thing
• Losing conviction of sin
• Comparing ourselves with others
• Lazy in Service
• No room for Christ
• Putting people’s word first
• Men pleasers, not God pleasers
• No testimony (personal witness or evangelism)
• Growing harsh and bitter
• Losing heavenly values
• World growing sweet

This simply means we as Born Again Christians backslide sometime or the other. In fact, many are in a backslidden state.

However, this does not mean one is unjustified or has fallen away from Christ (Heb 10:14). These are just obstacles in our godly walk on earth. If one is born-again it will cause one to bounce back or overcome these obstacles, or else one might not be born again (1 John 5:10).

God knew that man, even though with good intentions, is always likely to backslide, “And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High” (Hos 11:7).

That’s the reason he had promised his spirit to us to prevent  perpetual backsliding or apostasy, which a born again believer cannot do; because he said, “I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them” (Eze 36:27).

This makes it impossible for a genuine born-again believer to utterly backslide, in the sense of apostasy; “complete abandonment of faith.” Born again believers are now unbent from backsliding and are bent to following righteousness, as prophesied in Ezekiel 36:27.

In the Old Testament, God had vicious creature kill the children of Israel because of their backsliding, “every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces: because their … backslidings are increased.” (Jer 5:6). This backsliding was a complete (perpetual) abandonment of God and his principles.

A born again believer cannot totally abandon God, which would be making him a liar. No, not after one has “tasted of the heavenly calling.” God said, “I will put my spirit within you and cause you walk in my statues, and ye shall keep my judgments.” In other words, ‘I’m coming in you to make you live like how I want you to live and prevent you from walking contrary to me – I’m assuring it because I’m doing it’. Who can wrestle against God.

Once God saves you he keeps you, so much so that he brags about it, “My sheep…I know them…neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:27-29).

One might ponder, how then can you account for the multitude of born-again Christians who backslide each year?

The bible sums it up very candid,

“He that saith I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and truth is [wasn’t] not in him” (1 John 2:4).

Moreover, “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil” (1 John 3:9-10). In other words, a true born again believer cannot commit apostasy against Jesus Christ.

The Old Testament ‘backsliding’ (apostasy) was an affront to God and shows the often inability for humans to keep up to God’s standard; though it is not grievous. In fact, in the 80^th Psalm verses 17-19, the Psalmist cried for help from this very inability not to backslide. In it we see the forth-coming solution to this problem. It reads, “Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee: quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”

This was a Messianic Psalms and showed that the solution would only come through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Righteous men and God were fed up with the inability of not backsliding, God then said you know what, “I will put…” (Eze 36:27) and the rest is history.

“Let God be true, but every man a liar” (Rom 3:4)

Part 2

After being born again one cannot ‘dry up’.  That’s the reason we went sinning- to quench that thirst that kept reoccurring. However, Christ said, “whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:14). Christ made sure he said it to a woman that came to a well. Why? The woman at the well went to get water on a regular bases to quench her thirst. This perpetual quenching represents sin, which Christ pointed out to her; using the illustration of her many lovers. In contrast, Christ showed her that if she drank of his water (salvation), it would be the opposite. Instead of drinking more than one time from the well of salvation, one drink once and according to the savior, one will discontinue a life of sinning and/or never come back for more soul satisfying thirst quencher. In essence, one won’t completely backslide – apostasy: Because it shall be like a “well of living water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).

The only scenario that would foster one to drink again, would be if one completely backslides - apostasy. And that would mean such a person have become spiritually thirsty again; which is impossible if one drank from the well of salvation. Therefore, in this passage of scripture, God was saying a born again believer cannot backslide, in sense of leaving the faith, because such a one “SHALL NEVER THIRST AGAIN!”

“Let God be true, but every man a liar…That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings” (Rom 3:4).

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