Kept for Jesus: A Review Essay
by Matthew McAffee
[The following is an adaptation of a review recently published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 58 (2015): 858-61]
Kept for Jesus represents Sam Storms biblical-theological treatment of the Reformed doctrine of eternal security.[1] I appreciate his warm and approachable writing style, which produces a conversational tone for the book. In the introduction he outlines a two-fold purpose: (1) to convince Arminians and antinomians that they are mistaken in their beliefs, and (2) to deepen folks’ confidence in the Calvinistic understanding of God’s saving and preserving grace (p. 17). My review will primarily focus on the first purpose, with brief attention to the second. As a Reformed Arminian myself, I find that his attempt to convince us of Arminianism’s errors suffers from too much caricature and is therefore not a serious engagement with what Arminians (Weslyan or Reformed) actually say. I will revisit this problem after commenting on several aspects of the book’s argument, as well as its pastoral effect.
John 6 and 10
Chapter 1 offers a cursory exposition of John 6 and 10. His interpretation of John 10:28, “no one can snatch them out of my hand,” is summed up rather rhetorically: “Will you concur that ‘no one’ means no one? You don’t have to go to seminary or be able to read Greek to figure that out” (p. 23). He argues that no one, not even oneself, can wrestle the believer from God’s protective hand. By doing so he drives this passage into an interpretive corner and in contradiction to John 15:1-6 (treated in ch. 3).
However, the point of John 10 is that no external power (human or supernatural) can undo the union between Christ and his people. It says nothing of the sin of unbelief or hardening of heart. John 15, on the other hand, utilizes the vine metaphor, stating that the vinedresser (identified as the Father in v. 1) severs the unfruitful branches and casts them into the fire. Storms criticizes the Arminian view for requiring “that what Jesus denied could happen to a believer in 6:37, he affirms will happen in 15:6” (p. 47). But this is an oversimplification. In 6:37 Jesus affirms the cohesion of the divine will: those the Father draws to the Son will certainly not be refused/cast away by the Son; in 15:6 the vinedresser who casts out the unfruitful branches is the Father, who cuts them out of the vine (the Son) and casts them to destruction. Storms argues that these branches were never truly branches to begin with, but such an argument destroys the basic thrust of the metaphor. How can a false branch conceivably be in the vine?
Counterfeit Faith
Storms rightly acknowledges the NT teaching about false faith (esp. pp. 48-51). Such is undeniable from Scripture (e.g. 1 Jn. 2:19), and therefore is not the sticking point. The real issue is that Scripture apparently attests another category that does not correspond to the false professions of 1 John 2:19: genuine believers who renounce Christ and are thus “removed” from him by the Father.
How can one differentiate between genuine and fickle faith? Storms asserts: “to remain or abide in Jesus’s word” (p. 51). I could not agree more. To remain implies being placed within, which, in theological terms, constitutes union with Christ. Remarkably, Storms is forced to reinterpret the language of John 15, which places these branches “in” the Son. The NT language of being “in Christ” always denotes regenerate members of his body. To argue that “in me” in John 15:5 must modify “bears fruit” is both strange and exegetically unwarranted, since the condition is clearly “he who abides in me.” Besides, what would be the point of saying you must bear fruit “in me”? What would it mean to bear fruit outside of Christ?
The phenomenon of counterfeit faith equally applies to the sin against the Holy Spirit (Mt. 12:22-32), according to Storms. He explains that to sin against the Holy Spirit involves “lifelong disdain for Jesus . . . like the Pharisees of the first century” (p. 37). But the Pharisees were hardly lifelong “unbelievers” without qualification—they were spiritual leaders of the covenant community of Israel who nonetheless rejected God’s work through Jesus Messiah. They are not blaspheming the Spirit of God as outsiders, but as insiders. This issue raises an interesting question for Calvinism in general: why is the blasphemy of unbelievers against the Spirit a problem? What would it mean to be “beyond the forgiveness of God”? Does not God draw the elect to himself unconditionally (see pp. 78-79)? What would the point of this text be if it is only those irresistibly drawn who can never be “beyond the forgiveness of God” (pp. 38-39; cf. pp. 177ff.)?
Disciplined into Heaven
In further defense of the eternal security of the believer, Storms advocates the problematic view that “God ‘sustains’ some of his people . . . by removing them from this life before they have opportunity to persist in their sin to such an extent that they apostatize” (p. 97, citing personal conversation with John Piper). But does this not pose serious problems for the doctrine of God’s sovereign preservation of the elect—that is, he cannot make them persevere, so he kills them prior to their eventual apostasy? His understanding that Ananias and Sapphira were “disciplined into heaven through premature physical death because of their lying to the Holy Spirit” (p. 99) gives a positive spin on a tragic example of God’s judgment in the early church.
The Warnings of Hebrews
Chapter 7 addresses why the individuals described in Hebrews were not truly believers. His first reason appeals to the illustration in vv. 7-8: the ground yielding thorns and thistles proves they were never genuinely Christian. However, this fails to recognize the allusion to Deuteronomy 11:11 and the covenant curses. He also urges that we need to see what is not stated in Hebrews 6:4-6—terms like regeneration, conversion, justified, adopted, elect, and faith in Jesus. Yet these terms are not typical of the book as a whole, but are much more Pauline (though not exclusively). The author of Hebrews often discusses concepts parallel with other NT teachings, but with different terminology (e.g., the incarnation of Christ in Heb. 2).
Storms’ discussion of the individuals described in Hebrews 6 offers nothing new, but rehearses unsubstantiated interpretations that strangle the text of its meaning, making every attempt to get around the fact that it describes covenant members. That said, what would it mean for such individuals to “come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit” or to “have felt the wooing of the Spirit,” and yet not come to repentance (p. 111)? Is the Spirit’s work resistible? If Hebrews 6 describes people who experienced the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, yet were never brought to conversion, one would think so.
Storms rejects Tom Schreiner’s “means of salvation” interpretation of scriptural warnings, particularly for Galatians 5:2-14 and its mention of “falling from grace” (Schreiner similarly argues for Heb 6 and 10). Storms thinks Schreiner’s attempt to maintain its interpretive force—warning believers not to apostatize is God’s means of producing perseverance—leaves open the possibility that one could be cut off from Christ. Rather, he affirms, “our Father has guaranteed that it is impossible to be cut off from Christ” (p. 149). But that is exactly what Paul warns against, being “severed from Christ” (Gal. 5:4). Nonetheless he is unwilling to accept the Arminian view that this passage speaks of true apostasy, despite his concession that none of the Calvinistic readings does it justice (pp. 149-50). The only solution for Storms is to emphasize what the warning is not saying, namely, that believers really have nothing to worry about since they cannot truly apostatize, thus gutting the warning of its genuine force.
Storms’ forced reading of assurance passages makes them unnecessarily contradict scriptural warnings. He strains John 10 to say that since no one will snatch the believer out of the Father’s hand, not even God can do so. This formulation is irreconcilable with John 15’s warning regarding the eventual fate of the unfruitful branches—judgment. Perhaps we need to exercise greater care in establishing a more nuanced reading of each text in its own context. Storms is forcing assurance passages to say more than is exegetically warranted, thus creating unnecessary tension with scriptural warnings. Exegesis should not be so much about what a text could say, but first and foremost what it does say. Treating a passage as “a problem for the doctrine of eternal security,” but “not insurmountable” (p. 164) is not exegetically viable.
Omissions and Weaknesses
I am surprised that Storms never deals with 2 Peter 2:1, which explicitly applies redemption language to false teachers, who are said to “deny the master who bought them.” He only mentions the proverbs of the dog returning to its vomit and the sow to the mire in vv. 20-22 (adopting Schreiner’s phenomenological interpretation), but does not comment on the significance of the redemption language in v. 1.
It is unfortunate that Storms appears only to engage a repeated regenerationist view of apostasy, a view that I believe is unfounded exegetically. This view of Arminianism believes that apostasy is remediable. But justification results from our union with Christ and his righteousness through faith, so that apostasy involves the Father’s removing us from Christ should the condition of faith no longer remain. Such a state is irremediable (Num. 15:30; Heb. 6:4-6; 10:26). Storms charges, “if you believe that born-again Christians can apostatize and lose their salvation, you must embrace the doctrine of ‘twice lost, always lost’ . . . because Hebrews 6 says it is impossible to renew them to repentance” (p. 114). This is precisely the point, making it all the more urgent. If, however, Storms maintains that there are some unbelievers who “have come so very close to true conversion but then have hardened their hearts to such a degree that when they finally turn away from Christ, God simply lets them go” (pp. 114-15), then he must also embrace the doctrine of resistible grace.
Pastoral Implications
Before concluding, I would like to address the pastoral side of the book. Storms believes that the eternal security position he advocates is the only view that truly establishes assurance for believers. Why would anyone “reject the doctrine of eternal security?” (p. 15). He lists several reasons: tradition (“That’s what I was raised to believe”); the warnings of scripture; fear that it will encourage indulgence in a sinful lifestyle; leaders who want to secure power by keeping people in fear, etc. (pp. 16-17). In light of these possibilities, Storms wants his reader “to conclude each chapter more joyful and grateful than when you started reading, because you know that your sins are forgiven and that God will never, ever leave you or forsake you” (p. 17). This formulation fits with Storms’ insistence that the fundamental attribute of God is love. He states, “Nothing else in Christianity makes sense apart from the belief that God is love. God’s love explains everything . . .” (p. 19). As it relates to sin in the life of believers, God’s love is inconsistent with the notion that one day he could “quite simply count his losses and cut them loose” (p. 19).
The pastoral thrust of Storms’ book is that believers have nothing to worry about. The following statement expresses this sentiment well:
There are probably quite a few of you who have lived in fear that you committed the unforgivable sin when you took the Lord’s name in vain. Perhaps in a moment of rage or bitterness or disappointment you cursed the Lord or strung together a barrage of expletives or used the f-word repeatedly or some such thing. Or perhaps in your frustration and confusion you angrily declared that God doesn’t exist or that he has miserably failed you. As serious as these sins are, they are not beyond forgiveness! (p. 34)
No, none of these sins is beyond forgiveness, but this formulation unfortunately trivializes them. Furthermore, this type of formulation is foreign to the overall tenor of Scripture itself. Scripture warns us of the danger of sin in our lives. God warns his people not to allow sin to fester in our lives and thus harden the heart. Instead of telling his people not to worry of about the dangers of sin, the Bible tells us to fear: “Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it” (Heb. 4:1). This sentiment is in keeping with the law and the prophets who remind us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, knowledge, and understanding (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10). Or as the Lord warns us through Moses, “Watch yourself, lest you forget Yahweh your God by not keeping his commandments” (Dt. 8:11).
Such fear of the Lord is not irreconcilable with Christian assurance. Our salvation is grounded in the atoning work of Christ on the cross and the sinless life he lived. When we are united with Christ by faith, his righteousness becomes our own. It is a state of being grounded in the work of Christ, not our ability to live up to the law. Apostasy is a once-for-all renunciation of Christ’s work, which results in his removing us from union with him. The warnings of Scripture therefore function as God’s means of exhorting us to persevere in faith. There is real danger with sin, but at the same time there is confidence in the grace available to us in Christ. As many others have observed, once the real danger of these warnings is removed (i.e., apostasy), their legitimate function as warnings disappears. Therefore, not only is Storms’ view of eternal security exegetically and theologically problematic, from a pastoral standpoint it is potentially harmful to the soul.
Summary
Storms is to be commended for bringing this important subject of theological inquiry to the table once again. In light of his stated goal to convince Arminians of their error, however, I am disappointed by his failure to engage Arminianism on a serious level. This would have been a most welcomed and beneficial enterprise for all interested parties. Yet Kept for Jesus in the main preaches to the choir. Most citations are from likeminded authors (esp. Piper), with little awareness of Arminian perspectives. His monolithic casting of Arminianism is surprising, since he has elsewhere reviewed J. Matthew Pinson’s edited book, Four Views on Eternal Security, which distinguishes Reformed and Weslyan Arminianism. His intention to engage convincingly is laudable, but nevertheless unrealized. Finally, from a pastoral standpoint I believe that the way he handles the warnings of Scripture is potentially harmful to believers and on the whole is out-of-step with the sobering tone of Scripture concerning the deceitfulness of sin.
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[1] Sam Storms, Kept for Jesus: What the New Testament Really Teaches about Assurance of Salvation and Eternal Security (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015). 203 pp., $15.99 paper.
March 9, 2016
Very Good review.