Finishing The Race

Seemingly about to die as is strongly implied in 2 Timothy 4:6, the apostle Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7 that he has successfully kept his faithfulness to God and finished the race.  Besides his comment in 2 Timothy 2:10-12 about how Jesus will disown those who disown him, which echoes what Jesus says about how he will disown those who disown him in Matthew 10:32-32 (even if they were saved up until that point!), he is fairly direct in 2 Timothy 4 in affirming that salvation can be lost.  The way Paul speaks of himself uses language that clearly points to the capacity for failing to stay committed to God and righteousness.  One cannot finish a race one is not actively participating in, and the need for active effort to accomplish something always logically requires that there is the potential to not achieve this accomplishment by inaction or improper action.

2 Timothy 4:6-7—"For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure is near.  I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Not only does this passage clearly establish as do other verses that salvation can be lost (which does not necessitate that it cannot or will not be restored to the repentant!), but it also contradicts Calvinism.  Calvinism holds that Christians are eternally secure, that God has chosen them in some involuntary way (which has its own grave logical and Biblical errors I have previously addressed) that cannot be avoided or nullified by the actions of the Christian.  But the New Testament regularly touches on how salvation can be walked away from.  Whether the exact means of the loss is that God actively removes it or the person simply forfeits it by their sin, salvation is not eternally bestowed until after the resurrection, when a righteous person receives their eternal life (Daniel 12:2).

Finishing the race is essential.  For if someone drops out of this race and Christianity is true, their fate is destruction.  It is far less severe than the egregiously heretical atrocity of eternal torture that many Calvinists think the Bible promises the wicked, but being excluded from a perfected life by being killed in the second death is far from a minor punishment.  And any Christian could lose their salvation by sinning without even caring if they were in the wrong.  

It does not follow from a Christian sinning without the correct regard for truth, morality, and repentance that they will lose their salvation, but it is possible.  Just because someone has been "saved" or is saved does not mean they always will be.  This, too, does not logically follow.  These logical facts and the Bible's genuine doctrine of the loss of salvation are ignored by those who have already assumed that salvation cannot be forfeited, perhaps because of their church's traditions or the potentially strong personal appeal of not having to worry about personally maintaining a salvific standing before God.

According to a Calvinist, whose illogical and Biblically heretical ideology treats God as the exclusive soteriological choice-maker, the race does not actually need to be run at all.  Or, God "runs" the race for them so that it is never really up to a human either way.  Likely passively assuming they are among the elect when they could not truly know (on their own worldview, they are unable to choose this and can only hope that God has arbitrarily chosen them), a consistently devoted Calvinist would not bother with trying to act righteously in order to keep salvation, for they would think neither outward behavior nor inner assent has any relevance to securing the ultimately fixed status of their salvation.  Indeed, a being whose will is puppeteered by another entity is not responsible for whatever they believe or do anyway.  The former would not be capable of genuinely running, which Paul insists we can do.  And with the responsibility to run the race comes the possibility of not completing it.

Even if someone ignored every other pertinent verse in the Old and New Testaments, Paul obviously writes in 2 Timothy that the Christian needs to run the race in order to achieve victory.  It is not a victory over and against other Christians competing for a small number of divine pardons, as if only some who run can remain saved at the expense of the others' salvation.  That all people are invited to be saved by God is in fact one of the pivotal reasons why Calvinism cannot possibly be Biblical (1 Timothy 2:3-6, 2 Peter 3:8-9, 1 John 2:2).  No, it is a race to the same ending point for all participants, and everyone who runs can reach the end.  Paul writes as someone would if they were promoting the concept that salvation is not automatically more secure than someone's willingness to avoid sin or to repent.

An enormous number of things are assumed to be wicked which objectively are not on Judeo-Christianity; I have written about various examples many times over.  The parameters allow for much greater freedom than many who unfortunately have immense cultural sway claim.  But genuine sin must be rejected, and if one has sinned, there is no benefit in not seeking God's forgiveness other than perhaps the preservation of a misguided expression of autonomy.  Continuing the race to the end requires effort, and though in a very particular sense there is no human act other than mentally requesting forgiveness that initiates salvation (Ephesians 2:8-9), the righteous person who assumes that God will excuse their present or recent sin due to their past righteousness might very well inherit permanent death rather than eternal life (Ezekiel 33:12-13, 18, Galatians 6:8-9).