Chapter 6: What They Believed About Salvation. When I first began studying the early Christian writings, I was really surprised by what I read. In fact, after a few days of reading, I put their writings back on the shelf and decided to scrap my research altogether. But after analyzing the situation, I realized the problem was that their writings contradicted many of my own theological views. This is not to say that I found no support for any of my beliefs in the early Christian writings.
Their understandings corroborated many of my views. On the other hand, they frequently taught the opposite of what I believed, and they even labeled some of my beliefs as heretical. The same would probably hold true of many of your beliefs. To illustrate, these next few chapters discuss five beliefs that were accepted by the entire early church. These five examples are not the hardest of their beliefs for us to accept, but neither are they the easiest.
You may find that you agree with their views on some of these matters, but it's unlikely that you'll agree on all of them. Please understand that I'm not asking you to accept their teachings on these matters. I'm only asking you to hear them out. First subheading: Are We Saved by Faith Alone? If there's any one doctrine that we would expect to find the faithful associates of the apostles' teaching, it's the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. After all, that's the cornerstone doctrine of the Reformation.
In fact, we frequently say that persons who don't hold to this doctrine aren't really Christians. The story we usually hear about church history is that the early Christians taught our doctrine of salvation by faith alone. But after Constantine corrupted the church, the church gradually began to teach that works play a role in our salvation. Fairly typical of the scenario that's usually painted is the following passage from Francis Schaeffer's How Should We Then Live?
After describing the fall of the Roman Empire and the decline of learning in the West, Schaeffer wrote, "Thanks to the monks, the Bible was preserved, along with sections of Greek and Latin classics. Nevertheless, the pristine Christianity set forth in the New Testament gradually became distorted. A humanistic element was added.
Increasingly, the authority of the church took precedence over the teaching of the Bible, and there was an ever-growing emphasis on salvation as resting on man's meriting, the merit of Christ, instead of on Christ's work alone." Like Schaeffer, most evangelical writers give the impression that the belief that our own merits and works affect our salvation was something that gradually crept into the church after the time of Constantine and the fall of Rome. But that's not really the case.
The early Christians universally believed that works or obedience play an essential role in our salvation. This is probably quite a shocking revelation to most evangelicals, but so that there's no room for doubt concerning this matter, I've quoted below in approximately chronological order from early Christian writers of virtually every generation from the time of the apostle John to the inauguration of Constantine.
First one is Clement of Rome, who was a companion of the apostle Paul, and he was overseer of the church in Rome. He wrote, "It is necessary, therefore, that we be prompt in the practice of good works, for he forewarns us," quoting from Scripture, "behold, the Lord comes, and his reward is before his face, to render to every man according to his work. Let us therefore earnestly strive to be found in the number of those who wait for him, in order that we may share in his promised reward.
But how, beloved ones, shall we do this?
By fixing our thoughts on God by faith, by earnestly seeking the things that are pleasing and acceptable to him, by doing the things that are in harmony with his blameless will, and by following the way of truth, casting away from us all unrighteousness and sin." Polycarp, who was the personal companion of the apostle John, taught, "He who raised him up from the dead will also raise us up if we do his will and walk in his commandments and love what he loved, keeping ourselves from all unrighteousness." The letter
of Barnabas states, "He who keeps these commandments will be glorified in the kingdom of God, but he who chooses other things will be destroyed with his works." Hermas, who wrote sometime between the years 100 and 140, stated, "Only those who fear the Lord and keep his commandments have life with God.
But as to those who do not keep his commandments, there is no life in them. All therefore who despise him and do not follow his commands deliver themselves to death, and each will be guilty of his own blood. But I implore you to obey his commands, and you will have a cure for your former sins." In his first apology written before the year 150 AD, Justin Martyr told the Romans, "We have been taught that he accepts only those who imitate the virtues that reside in him: self-restraint, justice, and love of mankind.
And so we have received this teaching that if men by their works show themselves worthy of his design, they are deemed worthy of reigning in company with him, being delivered from corruption and suffering." Clement of Alexandria, writing in about the year 190, said, "The word having unveiled the truth showed to men the summit of salvation, so that either repenting they might be saved or refusing to obey they might be condemned.
This is the proclamation of righteousness: to those who obey, rejoicing; to those who disobey, condemnation." And again, Clement wrote, "Whoever obtains the truth and distinguishes himself in good works shall gain the prize of everlasting life." Some people correctly and adequately understand how God provides necessary power, but attaching slight importance to the works that lead to salvation, they fail to make the necessary preparation for attaining the objects of their hope.
Origen, who lived in the early 200s, wrote this.
He said, "The soul will be rewarded according to what it deserves, being destined to obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness if its actions shall have procured this for it, or to be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments if the guilt of its crime shall have brought it down to this." Hippolytus, a Christian overseer who lived at the same time as Origen, wrote this, "The Gentiles, by faith in Christ, prepare for themselves eternal life through good works." He again wrote, "Jesus, in
administering the righteous judgment of the Father to all, assigns to each what is righteous according to his works.
Justification will be seen in the awarding to each that which is just. To those who have done well, there will be justly assigned eternal happiness. The lovers of wickedness will be assigned eternal punishment. But the righteous will remember only the righteous deeds by which they reach the heavenly kingdom." Cyprian, who wrote around the year 250, said, "To prophesy, to cast out demons, and to do great acts upon the earth are certainly a sublime and admirable thing.
However, a person does not attain the kingdom of heaven even though he is found in all these things unless he walks in the observance of the right and just way." The Lord says, "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and performed other powerful works in your name?' And then I will confess to them, 'I never knew you.
Depart from me, you workers of evil.'" He continues, "There is need of righteousness so one may deserve well of God the Judge. We must obey his precepts and warnings that our merits may receive their reward." Finally, Lactantius, writing in the early 300s, explained this to the Romans, "Why then did he make man frail and mortal? So he might set before man virtue, that is, endurance of evils and labors, by which he might be able to gain the reward of immortality.
For since man consists of two parts, body and soul, of which the one is earthly, the other heavenly, two lives have been assigned to man. The first which is appointed for the body is transitory. The other which belongs to the soul is everlasting. We receive the first at our birth. We attain to the latter by striving, that immortality might not be available to man without some difficulties.
For this reason he has given us this present life, that we may either lose the true and eternal life by our sins or win it by our virtue." In fact, every early Christian writer who discussed the subject of salvation presented this same view. Our next subheading: Does this mean that Christians earn their salvation by works? No, the early Christians did not teach that we earn salvation by an accumulation of good works.
They recognized and emphasized the fact that faith is absolutely essential for salvation and that without God's grace, nobody can be saved. All of the writers quoted above stress this fact. Here are just a few examples.
Clement of Rome wrote, "We are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, understanding, godliness, or works done in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which almighty God has justified all men since the beginning." Polycarp wrote, "Many desire to enter into this joy, knowing that by grace you are saved, not of works, but by the will of God through Jesus Christ." Barnabas wrote, "To this end, the Lord delivered up his flesh to corruption, that we might be sanctified through the remission of sins,
which is effected by his blood." Justin Martyr wrote, "Our suffering and crucified Christ was not cursed by the law.
Rather, he made it manifest that he alone would save those who do not depart from his faith. As the blood of the Passover saved those who were in Egypt, so also the blood of Christ will deliver from death those who have believed." Finally, Clement of Alexandria wrote, "It follows that there is one unchangeable gift of salvation given by one God through one Lord, benefiting in many ways. And again, Abraham was not justified by works, but by faith.
Therefore, even if they do good works now, it is of no advantage to them after death if they do not have faith." So are faith and works mutually exclusive? You may be saying to yourself, "Okay, I'm confused. Out of one side of their mouth, they say that we are saved because of our works. And out of the other side, they say that we are saved by faith or grace. They don't seem to know what they believed." Oh, but they did.
Our problem is that Augustine, Luther, and other Western theologians have convinced us that there's an irreconcilable conflict between salvation based on grace and salvation conditioned on works or obedience. They have used a fallacious form of argumentation known as the false dilemma by asserting that there are only two possibilities regarding salvation. It's either, one, a gift from God, or two, it's something we earn by our works.
However, the early Christians would have replied that a gift is no less a gift simply because it's conditioned on obedience. Suppose a king asked his son to go to the royal orchard and bring back a basketful of the king's favorite apples. After the son had complied, suppose the king gave his son half of his kingdom. Was the reward a gift, or was it something the son had earned? Well, the answer is that it was a gift. The son obviously didn't earn half of his father's kingdom by performing such a small task.
The fact that the gift was conditioned on the son's obedience doesn't change the fact that it was still a gift. Likewise, the early Christians believed that salvation is a gift from God, but that God gives it to whomever he chooses, and he chooses to give this gift to those who love and obey him. Is their understanding really that strange? I so often hear evangelical Christians say that welfare should only be given to those persons who are truly deserving.
Now, when they say that certain poor persons are deserving, do they mean that welfare constitutes wages earned by such persons? Of course not. They still consider welfare to be a gift. Simply because a person is selective in his giving, it doesn't change the gift into a wage. Our next heading, yes, but the Bible says. Recently, when I was explaining the early Christians' understanding of salvation to a group of believers, one of the ladies was a bit disturbed.
She exclaimed in annoyance, "It sounds to me like they needed to read their Bibles more." But the early Christians did read their Bibles. As Josh McDowell points out in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, J. Harold Greenlee says that the quotations of the scripture in the works of the early Christian writers are so extensive that the New Testament could virtually be reconstructed from them without the use of New Testament manuscripts. He points to Clement of Alexandria.
He says 2,400 of his quotes are from all but three books of the New Testament. Again, Tertullian was a presbyter of the church in Carthage and quotes the New Testament more than 7,000 times, of which 3,800 are from the Gospels. Geisler and Nix rightly conclude that a brief inventory at this point will reveal that there were some 32,000 citations of the New Testament prior to the time of the Council of Nicaea in 325. So please don't accuse the early Christians of not reading their Bibles.
These Christians were well aware of what Paul had written concerning salvation and grace. After all, Paul personally taught men like Clement of Rome. However, the early Christians didn't put Paul's letters to the Romans and the Galatians on a pedestal above the teachings of Jesus and the other apostles.
They read Paul's words about grace in conjunction with such other scriptures as, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven," Matthew 7:21, or "He who endures to the end will be saved," Matthew 24:13. Again, all who are in the graves will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation, John 5:28 and 29.
Or again, "Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me to give to everyone according to his work," Revelation 22:12. And interestingly, every one of those quotations is from Jesus Christ himself. And I'll read you one from Paul. "Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you," 1 Timothy 4:16.
And there are many other scripture passages that the early Christians cited, which are listed in an end note in the Real Heretics book. So the real issue isn't a matter of believing the scriptures, but one of interpreting the scriptures. The Bible says that by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. That's Ephesians 2:8 and 9.
And yet the Bible also says, "You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith only." That's James 2:24. Our doctrine of salvation accepts that first statement, but essentially nullifies the second. The early Christian doctrine of salvation gives equal weight to both. As was pointed out earlier, the early Christians didn't believe that man is totally depraved and incapable of doing any good.
They taught that humans are capable of obeying and loving God, but they also believed that for a person to live obediently through his entire life, he needs God's power. In short, obedience isn't totally dependent on human strength, nor is it totally a product of God's power alone. It is a mixture of both. To them, salvation was similar. The new birth as spiritual sons of God and heirs of the promise of eternal life is offered to us all purely as a matter of grace. We do not have to be good enough first.
We do not have to earn this new birth in any way. And we don't have to atone for all the sins we have committed in our past. The slate is wiped clean through God's grace. We are truly saved by grace, not by works, as Paul said. Nevertheless, we also play a role in our own salvation according to scripture and the early Christians. First, we have to repent and to believe in Christ as our Lord and Savior in order to avail ourselves of God's grace. After receiving the new birth, we also have to obey Christ.
Yet obedience itself is still dependent on the continuing grace of God's power and forgiveness. So salvation begins and ends with grace, but in the middle is man's faithful and obedient response. Ultimately, salvation depends on both man and God. For this reason, James could say that we are saved by works and not by faith alone. Our next heading, can a saved person be lost?
Since the early Christians believed that our continuing faith and obedience are necessary for salvation, it naturally follows that they believed that a saved person could still end up being lost. For example, Irenaeus, the pupil of Polycarp, wrote, "Christ will not die again on behalf of those who now commit sin because death shall no more have dominion over him.
Therefore, we should not be puffed up, but we should be aware lest somehow, after we have come to the knowledge of Christ, if we do things displeasing to God, we obtain no further forgiveness of sins, but rather are shut out from his kingdom." Tertullian wrote, "Some people act as though God were under an obligation to bestow even on the unworthy his intended gift. They turn his liberality into slavery. For do not many afterwards fall out of grace?
Is not this gift taken away from many?" Cyprian told his fellow believers, "It is written, 'He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved.' So whatever precedes the end is only a step by which we ascend to the summit of salvation.
It is not the final point wherein we have already gained the full result of the ascent." One of the scripture passages that the early Christians frequently cited is Hebrews 10:26, which says, "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left." Our preachers usually tell us that the writer of Hebrews wasn't talking about saved persons.
But if that's the case, the writer certainly didn't communicate it very effectively to his readers because all the early Christians understood this passage to be talking about persons who had been saved. Incidentally, some of the quotations from the early Christians might make you think that they lived in eternal insecurity, but that's not the case.
Although they believed that their heavenly Father could disinherit them if he chose to do so, the overall spirit of their writing showed that obedient Christians didn't live with a constant morbid dread of being disinherited. Does an obedient son constantly worry and fret over the possibility of being disinherited by his earthly father? Our last subheading, the group that preached salvation by grace alone. Now, as surprising as all of this may be to you, what I'm about to tell you is even more bizarre.
There was a religious group labeled as heretics by the early Christians who strongly disputed the church's stance on salvation and works. Instead, they taught that man is totally depraved, that we are saved solely by grace, that works play no role in our salvation, and that we cannot lose our salvation once we obtain it. Okay, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking this group of heretics were the real Christians, and the so-called orthodox Christians were really the heretics.
But such a conclusion is impossible. I say it's impossible because the group I'm referring to are the Gnostics. The Greek word gnosis means knowledge, and the Gnostics claim that God had revealed special knowledge to them that the main body of Christians did not have. Although each Gnostic teacher had his individual version of teachings, they all basically taught that the Creator was a different God than the Father of Jesus.
This inferior God had acted without the authority of the Father in creating the material world. This Creator botched things up, and man is inherently depraved as a result. The God of the Old Testament, according to them, is this inferior Creator who possesses different qualities from the God of the New Testament. But the Gnostics taught that humans are the flawed work of this inferior God, and because of this, they are totally unable to do anything toward their own salvation.
Fortunately for mankind, according to them, the Father of Jesus took pity on humans and sent his Son for our salvation. However, because the flesh is inherently depraved, the Son could not have actually become a man. Rather, the Son of God simply took on the appearance of man. He was not truly man, and he never really died or was resurrected.
Since everything about man is inherently flawed, our works can play no part in our salvation, but rather we are saved purely by the grace of the Father, according to the Gnostics. Now, in case you have any lingering doubts on whether the Gnostics were true Christians or not, notice what the apostle John himself said about them.
He said, "Many deceivers have gone out into the world who do not confess Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh." And he says, "This is a deceiver and an antichrist." The Gnostics were the ones who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh, and they are the ones to whom John was referring. He made it clear that they were deceivers and antichrists.
So if our evangelical doctrine of salvation is true, we're faced with the uncomfortable reality that this doctrine was taught by deceivers and antichrists before it was taught by the church. Now, that concludes our chapter. I'm not going to read the many scriptures that are in the end note of the chapter, but if you have a copy of this book, I encourage you to read that on your own.