Doctrine Matters

(Proverbs 2:13 KJV)  Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

There is a doctrinal point here that I think is important.  It has to do with the possibility of leaving the fold of the saved.  Some call it backsliding.  Some call it apostasy.  Others call it impossible.  Many Christians believe that once you have been saved by grace there is no way you can depart from that grace.  Many of those people live upright lives.  It works for them.  I can’t help but believe though that there are people who look on that kind of doctrine as an excuse to live wild and dissipate lives.  Then people say they were never saved in the first place.

I find it hard to understand how you could “leave” (5800a) something without having been there in the first place.  There is a similar verse in Galatians with the same issues. 

(Galatians 5:4 KJV)  Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

How do you fall from a tree you have never climbed?  How do you leave a party you never went to?

So?  For sincere believers it won’t make much difference in their eternity.  For those on the border it can have eternal consequences.