What is the "the Crawl Out" theory
My sheep hear My voice and I know
them and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never
perish; neither shall any pluck them out of My hand. My Father who has given
them to me is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My
Father’s hand. I and My Father are one - John
10:27-30
There
are many in Christendom that believe that eternal salvation can be lost due to
a pattern of unbroken, habitual sin in one’s life. It should raise the question
if that person is actually saved in the first place; My answer is no.
This
type of thinking smashes against one’s liberty and confidence in God and his
word. It also causes anxiety and promotes a joyless experience in Christ. This type of theology also promotes a spirit
of fear which does not come from God
(II Timothy 1:7). One can never be sure if at some point God will pull the plug
on their salvation and revoke it – nonsense!!
It’s
an entirely different matter and heresy to believe that one can “give up” their salvation or
“crawl out” (that exact phrase was uttered to the writer last year by
someone who holds this view) of the hands of the Father and Son. This type of
thinking has huge reverberating effects I believe on the hearts and minds of
even the elect of God.
What
the writer calls the “crawl out” theory
is a view that true believers can somehow “pry”
themselves out of the eternal grip of the
Father God and the Lord Jesus Christ and thus rendering their salvation
null and void. It’s another way of saying
salvation can be lost or what they believe ”given up”. The mentality behind this view is that since man has
free will and God will not violate that will, he can choose to walk away from
the salvation he once had. Question, if you can walk away from true salvation,
did you ever have it in the first place? The answer is an emphatic NO! The
following verse describes that type of person:
“They(the false convert) 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 (I John
2:19).
The
bible also describes this type of person as a tare among wheat, a wolf in
sheep’s clothing, a false prophet (Matthew 7:15; Matthew 13:24-30).
The
problem that persists with this belief system is that man believes he is
somehow in control of the salvation process; he can pick up his salvation, and
lay it down at will. Now these aren’t the exact words the proponents of this
false doctrine will utter out of their mouths, but as we say in today’s
society, “actions speak louder than
words." Their doctrine will dictate their behavior. The idea that you can
give up your salvation is asinine for several reasons. I’ll cite a few:
Salvation is God’s
design –
God didn’t create salvation for it to be wrangled and twisted by man’s
sinfulness. Had He left it in the hands of men, he (man) would have definitely
destroyed it resulting in no one ever being saved. Salvation is of the Lord
(Psalm 3:8; Isaiah 12:2; Jonah 2:9;Zechariah 9:9).
Salvation was in
the pre-determined mind of God before time began – In eternity past, the Father
identified to the Son who He would save. He wrote their names down in the
Lamb’s book of life and gave them to the
Son as a love gift to go and redeem. Since the Son loves the Father, any gift
the Father gives him takes on infinite value; that is the elect. The rejection of this love gift that
originated in heaven proves that salvation is only for those who truly believe.
The chosen of God will ultimately remain faithful and true. The true believer
who knows his God will never walk away because they’re preserved by God through
the power of the Holy Spirit. This plan was authorized by God, executed by
Jesus Christ on the cross, and is being carried out right now by us, being
superintended by the Spirit. Man can’t
thwart it. God has already stamped his approval on it. (Ephesians 1:4; II
Timothy 1:12;Titus 1:2).
Walking away from
God proves one was never saved –
Jesus said, “no one putting his hand to
the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). This
proves that the one who claims he was genuinely saved and “crawled out” of the Father and Son’s grip because he decided he no
longer wanted to walk with the Lord was never a true disciple. He only
pretended to be. He was never in the Father and Son’s grip. It’s tragic for so
many people to subscribe to this view because of a poor understanding of
salvation and the nature of the atonement. The Lord never provided an “Opt out” clause in his salvation plan.
Those whom he truly saves, he saves them from within, and they’re saved
forever. That eternal security is never a license to sin because through Christ
we’ve been delivered from it’s curse, but a license to serve God and have it
truly count (Romans 6:1-2). We prove our love to Jesus by obedience to his
commands (John 14:15). Those that belong to the Lord are to depart from
iniquity (II Timothy 2:19). Those chosen by God for salvation will come to him
because the Lord has decreed it. When the Father draws them to the Son, the
desire to repent will be the overwhelming passion of the chosen sinner’s heart.
Scholars have called this Irresistible Grace. He’ll
acknowledge his sin and unworthiness upon hearing the true gospel. He’ll be
like the tax collector who humbled himself before God who beat his breast and
declared, “God be merciful to me, a
sinner” (Luke 18:13, italics added). All those appointed to eternal life will
believe once they hear the gospel (Acts 13:48).
A lot of Christians
have been victims of a poor theology – Because a lot of ministers in pulpits do not
understand the nature of predestination, the atonement and salvation, they
teach falsehood to the sheep. Since the average Christian is lazy when it comes
to studying to show themselves approved and searching the scriptures daily
whether these things are so (II Timothy 2:15; Acts 17:11), they become victims
of heretical teaching and so what they believe to be true is how they live
their lives. Their belief system unwittingly becomes what they believe about the bible says and so they propagate that
falsehood to other people. To them it seems natural and acceptable to say that
God actually saves man, but through an unbroken pattern of sinful behavior, God
abandons those whom he placed his particular love upon and he changes his mind
and damns them to hell after all; i.e. lose their salvation. Did anyone ever
take the time to think how that makes God look? It makes God look double minded! What someone is
saying is that He’s able to save, but he isn’t powerful enough to keep them
saved because the person decided the Christian life wasn’t for them so they
walk away, or they “crawled out!" This
shows a gross lack of faith in the word of God. I must reiterate, those that
walk away from the Lord were never saved if they stay away (i.e. Judas; John
6:71, the fake disciples of John 6:66, Possibly
Demas; II Timothy 4:10). They need to
get saved – for real! Examine yourself to see if you’re truly saved (II
Corinthians 13:5)! Those whom God saves have the Holy Ghost residing in them
and can
not practice sin (I John 3:9) .
They remain true because He keeps them and knows who are his (II Timothy 2:19).
This speaks of relationship.
Unrealistic
expectations about the Christian life –
Due to the popularity of the “Health and
Wealth” Gospel and it’s user friendly appeal, the masses have followed this
in droves. This false doctrine teaches that God wants all of his children
healthy, healed and rich; assuming that a person’s life is in what he has which
Jesus vehemently denied (Luke 12:15). Who
wouldn’t flock to a friendly offer like that, especially if it’s supposedly cloaked
with Jesus right? Their gospel offends
no one because it doesn’t confront sin and the need for man to repent. It’s
weak on sound doctrine and holy living. It’s non confrontational. The Word of
Faith movement promotes a “name and claim
it” theology which declares that if you positive confess something enough
times, it’ll come to pass. You in essence get to create your own reality. Their
scriptural premise for this Mark 11:23-24. This is nothing more than New Age
mysticism, and what is commonly today “The
Secret” or the “Law of Attraction” Go
to this link for an article on The Secret:
Once
one discovers the Health and Wealth gospel is false and it doesn’t work as they
hoped, they’ll stop following the false Jesus in that movement they’ll do two
things:
- They’ll blame God because they were lied to and want to have nothing to do with the true Jesus and the Church when the real gospel is presented. They’ll blaspheme God and the Church. They will find something more suitable to them
- They’ll investigate the word
of God and discover that the actual Christian life involves self-denial
and a life of service to the Lord with persecution which is unpopular. This
truth will offend the majority so they’ll deny the truth. The few that are
serious about becoming right with God will be drawn by the Father to the
Son and will be saved through the preaching of the gospel.
In
conclusion
The
Lord never abandons us when we sin. We break fellowship with God due to sin,
but not relationship. The joy of our salvation is temporarily removed when we
sin; at least it should be. We should be broken hearted over it (Psalm 51:12).
We must go to God and confess our sin so that we can be forgiven and cleansed
(I John 1:9). God chastises us when we’re out of line because he loves us and
commands us to be holy (Hebrews 12:5-11). God chastens us just as a natural
father would chasten his child when they disobey. The father is displeased, but
a good father would never disown his own child; nor will God forsake us. He
loves us and sent his only begotten Son to die in our place for our sins.
In
addition, to be able to “crawl out” of
the hand of the Father and the Son means that everything that the Father
decreed before time again would be reversed. We would no longer be chosen
before the foundation of the world, we could become un-sealed by the Holy
Spirit, Jesus came to die for us in vain because we’re now going to pay for the
penalty for own sins in hell. We’re no longer the predestined, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified (Romans
8:30). Do you now see the tragedy of this
position? What this means is that God’s plan failed – sins “power” was greater than God’s gracious power to keep us saved.
Jesus in essence loses all those the Father gave to him (John 6:37-41; John
10:27-30) if we have the power to walk away from such particular, and aggressive
love that God pre-determine the chosen
would receive. This is ridiculous! Those who understand who they are in Christ
and what he has done for them will never walk away anyhow. It defies all logic.
If God has decreed the elect remain with him, they will remain and never
perish. Those that walk away never belonged to him to begin with, will not see
life, for the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36).
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