The Restoration of Backsliders

QUESTION: How is it possible for one who has been saved and fallen into sin to come back to God in the face of Ezek. 33:18, where it says, "but in his iniquity that he hath committed therein shall he die"?

ANSWER:  The querist misinterprets this passage, which means, not that there is no possible salvation for a backslider, but that he must die in his iniquity, if he trusts in his  former  righteousness with no repentance and faith in God's mercy as emphatically expressed in verse 11, "As I live, saith the Lord Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, for why will ye die, O house of Israel." This tender and urgent entreaty includes apostates, as in Hos. 14:4, Isaiah 30:9 compared with ver. 15, "In returning and rest shall ye be saved." Mal. 8:7, "Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts," Luke 22:21, 32, "When thou art converted (restored) strengthen thy brethren." The prodigal son was a backslider whose return was received with gladness, robe, ring, shoes and a real dinner.

— Steele's Answers pp. 186, 187.

Crucifixion with Christ

Love made perfect requires as its antecedent that perfect surrender which, in the strong language of St. Paul, is crucifixion with Christ. The difficulty with average Christians is, that they faint beneath the cross on the via dolorosa, the way of grief, and never reach their Calvary. They do not by faith gird on strength for the hour when they must be stretched upon the cross. They shrink from the torturing spike, and from the spear aimed at the heart of their self-life. This betokens weakness of faith. But when the promise is grasped with the grip of a giant, no terrors, no agonies, can daunt the soul. In confidence that there will be after the crucifixion a glorious resurrection to spiritual life and blessedness, the believer yields his hand to the nail, and his head to the thorn crown. That flinty center of the personality, the will, which has up to this hour stood forth in resistance to the complete will of God, suddenly flows down, a molten stream under the furnace blast of divine love, melted into oneness with "the sweet will of God." After such a death there is always a resurrection unto life. An interval of hours or even of days may take place before the angels shall descend and roll away the stone from the sepulchre of the crucified soul, and the pulsations of a new and blissful life be felt through every fiber and atom of the being. It is not the old life that rises, but a new life is breathed forth by the Holy Ghost. "I am crucified with Christ, it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me." (R. V. Am. Committee.) "Dead indeed unto sin," "but alive unto God through Jesus Christ."

"He walks in glorious liberty,
To sin entirely dead:
The Truth, the Son, hath made him free,
And he is free indeed.
"Throughout his Soul Thy glories shine;
His soul is all renewed,
And deck'd in righteousness divine,
And clothed and filled with God."

He who enjoys this repose is brought so intimately into sympathy with Jesus Christ that he is all aflame with zeal, and aroused to the utmost activity to save lost men. As a venerable preacher, widely known, quaintly expressed it, "I enjoy the rest of faith that keeps me in perpetual motion."

— Half-Hours with St. Paul, Chapter 10.

Is It Impossible to Restore Fallen Believers?

QUESTION: Explain the impossibility of renewing fallen believers, as stated in (1) Heb. 6:4-6 and (2) 10:26, 27.

ANSWER: The Hebrew Christian who apostatized to find favor with his Jewish kindred must abandon not only the practice of Christianity, but the theory also. Before restoration to the synagogue he must declare Jesus an accursed impostor, a malefactor, "a hanged man." So long as he is doing this he is crucifying the Son of God afresh, in the present tense, denoting continuousness, it is impossible for God, who respects free agency, to save him. In (2) the sinning willfully is another present tense. So long as willful sin continues the apostate can find in Judaism no effectual sacrifice, but, if he should turn to Christ, he will find that his sacrifice has not lost its virtue. So long as any man is abiding in a state of willing sin he is shutting the door of repentance behind him. God does not shut that door, the sinner shuts it himself, and he alone can open it. He is the first cause, the cause uncaused of all his moral acts. He is the creator of his own character and destiny.

— Steele's Answers p. 147, 148.

Restoration of All Things (Acts 3:21)

QUESTION: Explain Acts 3:21, "Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, whereof God. spake by the mouth of his holy prophets since the world began," or from of old, as the American Revised Version has it.

ANSWER: The difficulty is in the word "restoration" or "restitution," the original of which is used nowhere else in the N. T. I think it means the fulfillment of all the predictions respecting Christ; in the Old Testament. When a prediction is made, the prophet commits his veracity to the result, and the fulfillment makes it; good, restoring it to its unquestioned state, as many before that may have doubted the truthfulness of the prediction. In verse 18 Christ's sufferings are declared to be fulfillment of prophecy, and here his stay in heaven is a fulfillment of other predictions relating to the universal spread of the preached Gospel until the totality of the Gentiles — not as individuals, but nations, including the Jews — be brought in. Before such times shall have passed Christ comes not from heaven.

— Steele's Answers p. 147.

Can a Sinner Be Restored?

QUESTION: I am in great distress, having been pardoned and baptized with the Holy Spirit, a happy, aggressive Christian worker, then knowingly and deliberately committing sin and repeating it for months and years. Is it possible for me again to find acceptance with adoption into the family of God? do you think there is any hope for so great a sinner?

ANSWER: Your case is a very sad one, but I see one ray of hope. Your desire to be restored to the state from which you have fallen is an indication that the Holy Spirit has not left you. He who commits the irremissible sin has, we are told no longing for restoration. Hebrews 6:4-8 may be quoted against our position, but this text does not apply to you because you are "not crucifying (present tense) the Son of God afresh," but rather, earnestly seeking him as your Saviour. Hebrews 10:26-31 has also a present tense denoting a persistent sinning: "For if we are willingly sinning," etc.: It should also be borne in mind that the apostasy of a Christian Hebrew is the rejection of the Christian system and a return to Judaism, in which such an apostate will find no effectual sacrifice for sin. But should he return to Christ he will not cast him out.

"There's a wideness in his mercy

Like the wideness of the sea."

The adversary, the devil, often tempts backsliders to believe that they have committed the unpardonable sin. In my pastoral experience by quoting the divine promises to a dying sailor who said, "There is no mercy for me, I have broken all of God's laws," his despair was changed into faith in Christ. He found pardon and died in peace. My advice to this sorrowing inquirer is to go to Jesus saying, "If I perish I will pray and perish only there."

— Steele's Answers pp. 26-28.