When non-Catholic Christians are shown verses that contradict security, they typically provide with a different one that seems to teach it, rather than reconcile the two. On the other hand, Catholic Christians explain how the verses fit into the traditional Christian view on salvation without ignoring them altogether. When some Protestants don't do this, they attempt to read into verses something the context lacks, such as that Paul was speaking of special awards in Heaven when speaking of disqualification, when this is at all fitting with context, or that Christ is speaking only of the Jews' tribulation when speaking of persevering to the end, when it's clear He is speaking of those who are persecuted for His name's sake.

When a Christian finds an interpretation that may be at odds with someone else's, it is valuable to go back to what the early Christians themselves believed. Christ promised that He would be with us to the closing of the age, that the gates of Hell would never prevail against the Church, that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth, and that the Holy Spirit would guide it to all truth.

Based on these biblical facts, studying the beliefs of the earliest Christians, such as the Didache, an early Catechism that contains teachings given to a local community by the Apostles, or the writings of Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna, two who studied with the Apostle John, as early as the first century, can help to know what is an authentic interpretation and what is not.

With the exception of Origen, who taught universal salvation (a heresy most Christians would agree), nowhere in the early writings of interpretations of the New Testament are there indications of eternal security for salvation. If anything, there is in the early Church the opposite heresy: a rigorism that says that those who sin after Baptism, or who lapsed during the persecutions, can never be brought back into the community.

Like the Ethiopian Eunuch and like Timothy, one must look to an authentic, authoritative interpreter of Scripture, where the historical evidence, which even predates the settling of the New Testament, refutes the notion of Eternal Security. Rather, if the same Church that settled the NT and taught both with the same level of authority and vehemence is wrong about salvation, why would it be right about Scripture, other than because it happens to agree with what non-Catholic Christians were taught about salvation?

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• Adapted from Theophilus's post in Spero Forum
Questions and answers for Christians
8/19/2006 3:13:51 AM - -67.10.170.21