ANNOUNCER: How can you know, how can you make the judgment that someone else is a believer in Christ, they’re eternally saved? What does the Bible say? Thank you, friend, for joining us today here on Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. We are located in North Texas, and our website is faithalone.org. We have an online seminary with full scholarships available, where you can study with us and earn an MDiv degree. The fall semester is coming up with courses in soteriology, hermeneutics, introduction to ministry, and other exciting electives. Registration and application are open for our fall semester at faithalone.org/seminary. 

Now with today’s discussion, here’s Sam Marr, along with Bob Wilkin. 

SAM: All right, everybody. This is part four in a short series of episodes we’re doing in response to a YouTube video called Free Grace versus Lordship, the channel is Smart Christians channel. I encourage you to go watch the original video. The goal here is not to bully or demean or to attack a person, but to attack arguments. I think the guy in the video does a good job of presenting, but I think where he airs is when he starts interpreting Scripture, and I think his understanding a lot of these passages is incorrect. So that’s what we’re talking about here. 

So in this episode, what I want to talk about is this is something he doesn’t really address in his video, but it’s a natural progression of a lot of the things he’s talking about. And this would be probably one of my bigger responses. If I was having a conversation with this guy or someone else with this point of view, these are some of the things that I would want to ask. 

So he talks about, we talked about the last one. He gives an example. He thinks Free Grace and Lordship people agree on this point when he says, if you see someone living ungodly, you would not say they are a believer. If you do, that means anyone can be a Christian. So first of all, there’s an issue there because you and I, if we looked at someone, and they were living ungodly, we wouldn’t just assume that person’s not a Christian. 

BOB: No, no, we wouldn’t. Yeah, we would assume they’re a person who is not walking in fellowship with God, but that doesn’t tell us whether they’re a believer or an unbeliever. 

SAM: Right. If I see someone, you gave the example of a guy on the park bench who was sleeping off a hangover, he still had alcohol with him. You walked up to him to evangelize or to communicate with him. So that’s a fair assumption. If I see someone on the street, I don’t necessarily know whether they’re a Christian or not. So if you’re evangelizing, then sure, it’s probably safer to assume everyone’s an unbeliever and then you evangelize everybody. But that doesn’t mean if I see someone who does something bad, I just immediately think, okay, that person’s not a believer. 

And the opposite is true. If I see someone do a good deed, that doesn’t mean I automatically assume, okay, they’re a believer. Now, there’s something to be said about the way you live and what that communicates to other people as believers we’re supposed to be a light to the world. And so if I’m a believer and I’m living sinfully and everybody sees that, then I’m not representing Christ well. So in that sense, I hope they don’t know I’m a believer because now I’m misrepresenting Christ, but if they do, then it’s a misrepresentation. It doesn’t mean that I’m no longer a believer because I’m living that way. 

BOB: Right. Jesus said, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven and Paul picked up on the same thing in Philippians chapter two and said that we’re lights shining in the darkness and we’re shining in a wicked generation. And so believers should, let’s put the emphasis on the should. 

SAM: Well, and that’s where the difference is, is we would say should he says have to. If you’re not a light shining in the darkness, then you’re not really a believer. You’re just lying to yourself. But the places it takes him are interesting. And so that’s what I want to look at. One of the he cites Hebrews 11, which is called the the Hall of Faith, the list of Old Testament believers. And so he goes here to say, look, there’s no examples of believers in the Bible that aren’t accompanied by good works. So we’ve got Abraham Moses, David, those are all believers. He just assumes they are because they’re in the Hall of Faith. And he’s saying, look, the writer of Hebrews listed all of those people and also listed good deeds they did because you can’t have faith without good deeds. And he also goes to James 2, same thing. You can’t have faith without good works. And he’s arguing Hebrews 11 proves that. 

But my question would be, what about the bad deeds they did? David committed adultery and murder. Moses directly disobeyed God and was prevented from entering the Promised Land because of it. Abraham deceived, at best, the king when he said that Sarah was his sister not his wife. And it’s clear that that was not a good thing for him to do. So what I don’t understand, someone making this argument is, I see someone, I don’t know anything about them. If I see them do a good deed and then I see them do a bad deed, should I assume they’re a believer or not? I don’t understand the argument.

BOB: Right. So the question, how do we know that someone is born again? And that seems to be the question that this Smart Christian is answering is, how do we know? And he says, we know by looking at their works. The problem with that is the Scriptures are very clear that believers can be wise or foolish, read the book of Proverbs, for example, or Psalms. And believers can either walk in fellowship with God or walk out of fellowship with God. For example, look at Luke 15, especially with the prodigal son. 

ANNOUNCER: The Grace Evangelical Society’s recently published Old Testament Commentary, Volume One is now available. Find it at faithalone.org/store. It’s where you can also find Bob Wilkin’s latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, as well as many other titles by Grace Evangelical Society authors. Please come by and have a look today. You’ll find the GES store at our website, faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org/store. Now back to today’s topic.

BOB: And so the idea that if you see somebody walking in the darkness, that tells you they’re an unbeliever, that’s ridiculous. The fact that you see somebody with good works doesn’t tell you’re a believer. You mentioned that the speaker on this video said that Hebrews 11, all the people mentioned they have good works. Well, I’ve got some news for him. Every single human that lived to become an adult has lots of good works. There’s no such thing as an unbeliever who has no good works. In fact, the reason why their works are going to be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment in Revelation 20:11-15, is to fairly recompense them so that the torment they experience in the lake of fire will be proportional to their works. And it’s not going to be just bad works they look at. It’s all their works good and bad. Unbelievers do lots of good things. And the fact that someone has done good works doesn’t tell me whether they’re a believer. Or an unbeliever. 

For example, Sharon and I broke down one time driving back from the Fort Worth area, we were on the freeway was 105 degrees. So the hose’s for the radiator, one of them ruptured. And I had all this green fluid right over the windshield and suddenly my heat light came on. So I pulled over and we called AAA and they said they’d be there within 90 minutes. Well, it was 105 degrees. This good old boy drove up in a big pickup, pulled up behind us and he asked what was going on. And we said, well, we’re just waiting for AAA, thanks for stopping, but we’ve got this problem. And I think he actually looked under the hood and saw that it was a ruptured hose. And he’s like, well, if I had a hose, I could fix it, but I don’t. So he said, just come sit in my truck. It’s air conditioned. You can wait here in the air conditioning. I’m like, no, no, we’re okay. You know, it’s it’s hot, but we can handle it. He’s like, no, no, you got to sit in the truck. 

Well, I was thinking, I don’t know if this guy is a believer or an unbeliever, but he’s sure a nice guy. This didn’t tell me whether he was born. I mean, he could have been an angel for all I know. He also could have been an unbeliever or a believer, but he was a nice guy. We’ve all had people who have befriended us if you needed that your tire changed or something. Somebody helps you. Doesn’t mean they’re a believer. 

The thing about Hebrews 11 is these are all examples of people who exhibited manifestations of their faith. They not only believed, but they did something that showed that they were applying what they believed. For example, the parents of Moses released him into the water because they believed God was going to save him and that God had a future for their son, which of course he did. So I would say, look, Hebrews 11 doesn’t somehow teach that all believers are overcomers. He’s picked out believers that ended well. 

SAM: Well, we should note here being an overcomer does not synonymous with believing in Christ for everlasting life. 

BOB: Although a lot of people think that. 

SAM: And I’m sure that’s where he would go if he expanded on it more and same issues we talked about, you have to separate salvation from what’s not salvation. And Hebrews 11 is not talking about, look at these people that made it into heaven because they did something good or they believed and they did something good. That’s not the reason he highlighted those believers. 

BOB: No, these people are going to be rewarded. Why don’t we go and read the book of 1 Corinthians and there we find out that they had divisions and some were saying I’m of Paul, some were saying I’m of Apollos, some said I’m of Peter or Cephas and some said I’m of Christ. That was horrible this party spirit they had. One of the guys was actually sleeping with his father’s second wife. There are lots of examples. They were taking each other to court and they shouldn’t have been doing that. They were abusing the Lord’s Supper. Some of them got drunk at the Lord’s Supper and the result some of them died. Do you look at that church and go, oh, well, those people must not have been believers. Well, no, he calls them saints. He says that they’re fellow believers. 

And so the issue when you read through the New Testament is there’s lots of believers who weren’t living the way they should. Of course, you know what that leads a lot of people to say is, oh, the epistles write to both true and false professors and the way you know which is which is by how they live. But that just doesn’t wash because the authors call their readers brethren. They call them believers. They call them saints. 

And so it’s a sad thing because the way that this person and lots of people identify who’s a believer or not is not by whether they believe, it’s by what they do. What if the person’s a Buddhist, but they do a lot of good works? Before you would ask them what they believe? Wouldn’t you say, oh, that must be a born again believer? What if they’re a Hindu or what if it’s an atheist and they’re just a really wonderful atheist? Would you go, that person must be born again? No, the way you determine who a believer is, is to find out if they believe doesn’t that make sense? 

SAM: I don’t see any other way. Again, to reiterate, as believers, we should have both. We should believe and we should look like a reflection of Christ, but should and have to are just two vastly different things. 

BOB: Right. There’s no such guarantee in Scripture. In fact, the Scriptures are real clear with all the warning passages that we might fall away. And in fact, if we think we might not fall away, we’re in great danger of falling away. 

SAM: Why write encouragement and teaching to people that can’t fall away? It doesn’t fall out. 

BOB: Well, thanks so much. We appreciate this discussion and let’s keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode, how can you know if you yourself are saved? Please join us for that, and in the meantime, let’s keep grace and focus.