Double Jeopardy, does the Bible teach it?

I want to make a comparison with an excerpt from the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and the Scripture.

             “nor shall any person be subject to the same offence to twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”

Why did I use this excerpt? Because it protects one from being prosecuted for the same crime once one has been acquitted of it in a court of law.

Also, once someone has been forgiven of sin after they genuinely repent, and exercise belief in the completed work of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross, they can never be condemned for their sins again; neither in this life nor in the life to come.

To believe or teach that a person can lose their salvation after they have obtained it is unbiblical. Yet many Christians sadly believe and teach this heretical doctrine. The ramifications of one truly saved losing their salvation and going to hell is enormous.

1.       It means sin abounded more than grace – this reasoning is in exact contradiction to

Romans 5:20, “Moreover the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

There is no way that sin could triumph over grace once Jesus died for sin. God used grace (His unmerited favor) by sending Jesus Christ to die a sinner’s death for the forgiveness of our sins (Heb 9:22).

2.       It means Christ’s atonement was not sufficient – This argument has huge implications. By believing and teaching that one can lose their salvation and go to hell; which is a form of double jeopardy, one is implying that Jesus’ humiliating, agonizing death on the cross for sin which was predetermined by God the Father (Acts 2:23) meant absolutely nothing! Why do I say that? Because in the final analysis, He died for people that He could not secure in salvation. He died for them, but it was an ineffective atonement for their sins. Bottom line, Jesus failed. Can God fail at anything?

3.       It means that God the Father and Jesus lied – If salvation is not eternal, then it is not salvation at all. The scripture is replete with texts that prove to us that His salvation is everlasting. The most famous one of all is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believe in Him shall not perish, but has eternal life.” Jesus also said in John 10:27-30, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them to Me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.”

3a. There are those who have argued that although we are in the eternal grip of the Father and the Son, they can “crawl out” of their grip. Why would one say this? Because they believe that since, “God does not violate our will, He will let us leave Him if we choose to.” In other words, walk away from the faith. That seems reasonable right? No one came make us do something we do not want to do.

I want to flesh this argument out as effective as I can. Now, if we can “pry ourselves out” of the care of the Father and Son, it would seem to me that we are more powerful than them. Their love to keep us is weaker than our hate to depart. Remember God planned our salvation in eternity past (Eph 1:5). Meaning God had already made provision beforehand to make Jesus a propitiation for our sins (I John 2:2). When we repented and believed, God through Christ secured our salvation right then forever. Listen to the language of Paul in Philippians 1:6, “Being confident of this very thing, He that began a good work in you will complete unto the day of Jesus Christ.”

In 1 John 5:12-13 we read, “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know you have eternal life.”

The language here is absolute. Those whom God saves, He saves forever. Now I ask the reader, if you know the wonders of God’s grace in saving you from your sins; you understand the nature of the atonement of Christ; that He bore your sins in His own body when you believed – meaning our sins were transferred to Him, and God punished Him for our sins so that we do not have to suffer the penalty for our own sins ever (Isa 53:1-5; 1 Pet 2:24); and that God’s wrath against His Son for our sins was satisfied so that now the Lord is free to extend His grace toward us; why would anyone in their right mind want to leave a love that powerful and tenacious when we know we do not deserve it?

To me it defies all logic to turn one’s back on ultimate true love.

Double Jeopardy does not exist in God’s kingdom negatively (italic added on 8/18/2018). God will not save a person and through that person committing habitual sin God decides to change His mind and send that person to hell.  That person was never truly saved, to begin with (I John 2:19).  True believers cannot practice sin.[1] Why? Because the Holy Spirit dwells in us (I John 3:9). We must practice righteousness. I would be willing to debate anyone that believes the double jeopardy view.

Only if you are a Catholic is this view taught; meaning you can receive salvation and subsequently lose it through mortal sin. In order to obtain it again, you have to perform certain sacraments in order to “earn” more grace[i] and re-justify yourself.

Not so in Christianity; Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross was once and for all atonement for sin – never to happen again. Why? Because it was sufficient for the sins of all people for all time. God does not revoke His promise to save those whom He loves; so much so, that He sent His perfect, sinless Son to die for them when they believed. Why in the world would God plan this before the beginning of time and decide later to renege on this perfect demonstration of His love?! Rest assured, if you are in genuinely in Christ, you are secure in Him.[ii] Listen to these fantastic words from the apostle Paul, “For when we without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man, someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom 5:6-10)?

I hope the reader realizes how powerfully liberating these verses are. Paul is saying that while we were still God’s enemies, He so loved us to send His Son to die for us; and not die for us hoping we would believe in Him, but knowing we would believe, and thus saving our souls; we are justified beloved! Jesus did not die in vain. His death for our lives was successful. Redeemed people cannot go to hell! God never designed it that way. Jesus did not die to make us savable, He died to actually save us; to live holy and righteous in this life, and to be a light in the darkness of this world.

Many Christians believe that when Jesus died on the cross He provided the way to salvation, but leaves it up to us alone to cast the deciding vote to accept Him or not.  In other words, Jesus cleared the path to come to Him, and He’s hoping that we have the good sense to confess our sins, believe and activate our own salvation. That is only a potential salvation. I got good news for you, none of us (on our own) have enough virtue or willingness to come to Christ.  Left up to us, man will never turn to God.

So what does God have to do to compel us to want to come to Christ? The Father has to draw us to the Son (John 6:44,65). God’s power is the only way we will be willing to come to Christ. We have no righteous impulse within ourselves to do it (Rom 3:11). God must overcome our stubborn resistance to the gospel, activate our freedom so we will be willing to believe. Salvation is of the Lord (Jonah 2:9).

Now with that being said, hopefully, one can clearly see that God’s plan from before the beginning was to save sinners. Once He does that double jeopardy is attached in that one cannot be charged for the same offence. Since our sins have been washed away by the Lord, how can God turn around and shackle us for the same sins we have been acquitted of? In our secular judicial system, we cannot be doubly indicted for the same crime, nor can we in God’s kingdom suffer for the sins Christ suffered and was punished for judicially in the Father’s court.

When someone dies in sin instead of in Christ, they will suffer in hell and pay the penalty for their own sins for eternity (John 8:24).  What this means is Christ did not pay the penalty for their sins. For if He did, and the person dies in unbelief, that is double jeopardy; Christ’s death for them would have been in vain since they ended up perishing in sin.

If you desire to discuss this matter further email me at dharbinger@gmail.com .

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[1] True believers have been delivered from sin so we are not live in it. Does not mean we will

Never sin, but we are not to serve sin because we have been delivered from it (Romans 6:1-2; I John 1:8-10).

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[i] For more info on the Catholic view of salvation, please click this link: http://gospelofrepentance.blogspot.com/2016/02/justification-by-faith-two-views.html

[ii] For a comparative article, please read this one: http://gospelofrepentance.blogspot.com/2012/05/my-sheep-hear-my-voice-and-i-knowthem.html

Why did the prophet Isaiah say God created evil? Isn't this a horrible contradiction?

In Isaiah 45:7 we read, “I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.”

So, why in the world would the prophet make such a statement like this? Why would God be responsible for creating evil when He is good and His mercy endures forever (Psalm 136)?

One must conclude that if God created evil, then He must 1) be evil Himself. And 2), He cannot condemn man for the evil he does since God created it. And 3) Evil must be good.

As always when reading any passage in scripture, context is the key.

The word evil in Hebrew is the word Ra. It has multiple meanings such as hurt, ill, pain, harm, sorrow, mischief, affliction, misery, and calamity. It appears 663 times in the King James Bible (KJV). 431 times it is translated evil. The word evil also appears in the New American Standard Bible version (ASV).

A more accurate rendering of the word evil in the above verse is calamity. God is the creator of calamity.

The prophet in verse seven is making comparisons between natural phenomena, creating light and darkness, peace and calamity. The pairs are polar opposites of one another: light-darkness, peace-evil (i.e. calamity).

The word evil can be misleading because we only regard evil in only one form, moral evil which God is NOT the creator of. Moral evil deals with the wickedness of man which is by man’s freewill choice. God has never been the author of sin. Sin came into the world by the disobedience of one man, Adam (Rom 5:12).

So, what is calamity? Calamity comes in many forms, earthquakes, blizzards, tsunamis, hurricanes, disease, poverty. Another way of saying calamity is natural evil or disasters.

Why do these terrible things exist? They exist as a punishment and judgment to mankind for its wickedness. In other words, moral evil has given birth to natural evil which eventually leads to death. The former is the cause and the latter is the effect.

Had man never sinned, there would not have been any natural disasters.

Once again, we need to diligently study scripture carefully so we come to the correct meaning of a verse. This passage is also a great one to help critics and skeptics of God’s word. This passage has no doubt stumped many because examining verse seven at face value, it appears God is the creator of evil – which some would then conclude God is the author of sin.

This type of reasoning (God being the creator of evil) is an argument called Reductio ad absurdum.

It is a claim or argument based on a false premise which is drawn out to a logical conclusion proving the original argument absurd. Another way of saying it is: The absurdity of the conclusion exposes the impossibility of the original assumption (that God could be the creator of evil).

The yoke and burden of Jesus

“Come to Me all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.”

-          Matthew 11:28-30

To really grasp the import of Jesus’ invitation to come to Him, we need to read the three preceding verses. They read like this, At that time Jesus said, “I praise You Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt 11:25-27).

These verses clearly explain that all authority has been given to Jesus from the Father; particularly in the area of salvation. That is why Jesus said, “Come to Me (italics mine) all you who are weary and heavy laden…”

Although this is a loving invitation to embrace the Son, it is also a command from the Lord. For only in Christ will we have lasting rest. Besides Him there is no savior (Isa 43:11). The word rest in the Greek is anapausis. This is a compound word. Ana means up, and pauō means to make to cease. The rest Jesus offers is not a rest from all work. Rather, it is an invitation to salvation. He is offering us to co-labor with Him in His kingdom as opposed to carrying the heavy burden and yoke of the sin of legalism (i.e. trying earn one’s way into the kingdom of God). By comparison, Jesus yoke is definitely easy, and His burden light.

These verses coincide with the first beatitude which says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:3).

What this means is those who are impoverished and bankrupt in spirit are blessed. How and why? To be blessed means to speak well of, to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow blessings on. The original Greek term is where we get our English word eulogy: eu means well. Logos means word – to speak a well or good word on someone.

Jesus declared the poor in spirit are blessed people because they will inherit the kingdom. They understand their deficiency spiritually so they like the tax collector in Luke 18 will beat their breast in humility and shame declaring, “God be merciful to me, the sinner” (Luke 18:13). The poor in spirit will throw their lives at the mercy of God’s throne and will beg and plead for the Lord to remember them when He comes into His kingdom like the thief on the cross (Luke 23:42).

Notice the virtues Jesus describes of Himself; He declares He is gentle and humble in heart. That is the same attitude we are to exhibit when we come to God; we must be of a gentle and humble spirit, confessing our sins in genuine repentance. Only then are our hearts pliable to receive the word of God that is able to save our souls.

In summation, Jesus is inviting all to come to Him so that we can inherit an eternal respite for our souls. Jesus’ rest is equivalent to salvation for that is why He came to earth; to seek and save those who are lost (Luke 19:10). This is His loving offer of grace. God sovereignly saves who He wills; and at the same time He graciously invites all to come to Him to find rest.