An Uncomfortable Truth About "Salvation Issues"

A Complicated Subject

Every now and then I’ll see an issue come up multiple times over the course of a few weeks, and when that happens I like to make sure I know where I stand on that particular issue.

The latest one has been the matter of so-called “salvation issues.” A salvation issue is an issue that rises to the level of costing one their salvation if they get it wrong.

“Is instrumental worship a salvation issue?”

“Is theistic evolution a salvation issue?”

“Is church leadership structure a salvation issue?”

These questions and the entire framing of the matter badly miss the point.

To be clear, I do believe there are salvation issues. To not believe this, one would have to be a universalist, believing no one will be condemned.

We’ll take it for granted that believing, confessing, repenting, and being baptized are salvation issues. If you aren’t a Christian in the first place then you aren’t at risk of something costing you a salvation you don’t have in the first place.

Beyond that, if somebody stubbornly won’t repent of a sin, that’s obviously a salvation issue (Hebrews 10:26-27).

But that hard, fast list is incredibly short. It’s when we take the next step beyond it that things get complicated.

Let’s stick to an example that was set before me recently: is believing in theistic evolution a “salvation issue?”

It depends.

Of course, the plan of salvation is not “Hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized, and hold to 6 day creationism.” But some maintain that one cannot profess theistic evolution and still be a Christian. Is it so cut and dried, though?

Let’s take 3 fictional people as our example.

One is a young man who says he will not entertain the idea of young earth, 6 day creation because “If I have to deny science to be a Christian, I’m not doing it.”

Number two is an old woman who has been saved and has spent decades holding theistic evolution simply because that’s what she knows and she hasn’t spent much time thinking about how it clashes with Genesis.

Third we have a minister in the churches of Christ who realizes his college town audience won’t take terribly kindly to staunch 6 day creationism, so he makes room for both beliefs.

On the surface all three of these people are confessing the same thing, but it would be absurd to pretend they’re all in the same boat.

And yet that’s exactly what we do when we try to legalistically come up with a complete list of “salvation issues.”

As a group, we are drawn heavily toward head over heart, truth over spirit.

But God doesn’t have our same imbalance. If anything, we have reason to believe He would be more lenient to those sincere in their ignorance than to the stone-hearted but correct.

That’s where grace comes in. Grace does not cover error on true “salvation issues” because grace is for the saved. For example, saying “I don’t need to repent” is not a view that will be given grace.

But if someone becomes saved, sincerely loves God, and is striving to please Him yet has a misunderstanding on a belief such as theistic evolution, there’s reason to believe that’s where grace comes in. And if grace isn’t a factor in that case, where else would it be?

(“But God is no longer overlooking the times of ignorance!” some might object. To that I would say, that’s not at all what that verse [Acts 17:30] is talking about. It’s not even speaking on the same category of issue.)

As “give me the list” people who want to check boxes of dos and don’ts, we have to grapple with a difficult reality:

God grades on a curve. Two people can functionally do or believe the same thing yet be totally different in God’s eyes.

With God it’s not only “What did you do?” but also “What did you know?” and “What should you have known given the opportunities available to you?”

We see this in the Old Testament when Solomon (1 Kings 3:3) and a number of other kings were commended for loving the Lord and keeping His statutes despite the fact they sacrificed and burned incense at the high places against God’s desire. Later, this exact same act was given as a reason why God condemned Israel to captivity (2 Kings 17:11).

Sometimes it was seen as a small blemish on an otherwise strong record of faithfulness, other times it was seen as a sign of apostasy.

Similarly, Apollos didn’t need a rebuke. He just needed to be shown the truth “more accurately.” Others were called false teachers. He was shown grace and patience. Maybe it’s all a bit more complicated than we want it to be.

What are the practical implications of all this?

More than anything, it’s about a mindset shift. Rather than trying to come up with a hard, fast measuring stick to determine who’s in and who’s out, we must realize God’s measuring stick starts with the heart. This is why Jesus repeatedly said He desired compassion and not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13, 12:7) and hammered the Pharisees for trying to be technical law-keepers while remaining dead internally (Matthew 23).

Spirit and truth both matter, but the order they come in matters, too. Spirit should lead to truth. Now, spirit can exist ignorant of truth. But once it becomes aware it can either accept truth or no longer be considered a right spirit.

We also have to keep in mind, change comes slowly. It’s incredibly rare for somebody to come across truth and change their minds that very instant. It takes time to work on them, but with the right spirit they’ll get there eventually.

So, I say all that to say we should tread lightly in judgment.

Yes, there is a time to draw a line on salvation issues. But we also should be careful to give people the grace we want when we are wrong (Matthew 7:2) and allow them time to come around.

We are way too quick to whip out our handy, exhaustive charts of who’s saved and unsaved without giving consideration to the heart and what opportunities an individual has had.

The next time you want to slap the label “salvation issue” on something, keep in mind that God does always not categorize these things so cleanly as we might like.