Can a Believer Fall Away?

ASK THE PASTOR WITH DALE RATZLAFF | Pastor and Founder, Life Assurance Ministries (1936–2024

FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE PRINT VERSION OF PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE, WINTER, 2015. 

Doesn’t the parable of the Sower teach that a ­believer can fall away?

Most of the readers of Proclamation! are familiar with this parable—often called the parable of the soils—as it is recorded in all the synoptic gospels (Mt. 13:2-9; Mk. 4:1-9; Lk. 8:4-15). In short, the Sower’s seed fell on four different soils: hard and impenetrable, rocky, weedy, and good. The seeds on the hard soil were eaten by birds; the seed on the rocky soil sprouted plants which withered quickly without water or firm roots. The seed in the weedy soil were choked by the encroaching thorns, and the seed on the good soil yielded a crop “a hundred times as great” (Lk. 8:8). How are we to understand this parable?

It is clear this group hears the gospel, but the message of Christ does not penetrate into the heart to bring repentance and true saving faith. It is the next type of soil (people) that raise the question asked at the beginning, “Can a believer fall away”? 

pastor

Saving faith is more than intellectual belief: it is belief and trust. Notice that the people in this category “fall away” when tested. In other words, they really did not trust the word of the gospel. One reason God allows us to be tested is to show us whether we have saving faith or just intellectual belief without willingness to trust our lives to God. 

Those in this group also do not exhibit saving faith. They hear the “good news” but the “deceitfulness of riches” and worldly pleasures pull them away from real saving faith. Like the rich young ruler, they are unwilling to give up what they love the most for the sake of the gospel.

The last group exhibit true, saving faith. 

And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it, and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold (Mk. 4:20).

In conclusion, the parable of the Sower does not teach that a true believer will fall away. It does, however, teach that saving faith is a real thing that changes the life. It is more than saying the words, “I believe”. Saving faith continues to trust God even in difficult times. †

 

Dale Ratzlaff
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