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Eternal Security and Church Discipline

Creative Focus Publishing
Published by Craig Gunhouse in Eternal Security · 12 February 2020
Tags: eternalsecuritydiscipline
Last night I was reading a website where they didn’t believe in eternal security.  The next morning, I woke up and started thinking about what I had read.  Instead of going directly to verse that I believe strongly support eternal security the Lord had me thinking on 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 5 in particular.

1Co 5:5 (WEB) are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.  

I believe that these verses speak of Church discipline, and the process by which the person under disciplinary action is to be handled.  Since the topic at hand is eternal security and not Church discipline how does this relate to eternal security.  Let us look at verse 5, “are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”  The verse speaks of the “destruction of the flesh”, physical flesh, but “the spirit may be saved”.  If 1 Corinthians 5:5 is referring to the spirit being saved we are more than likely talking about a Christian.  Would sexual sin of this type qualify for the loss of a Christian’s salvation and eternal security?

1Co 6:18-20 WEB  Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.  (19)  Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,  (20)  for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

1 Corinthians 6:18 tells us ‘Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body, ‘ and seems to imply that there is a difference.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20 goes on to tell us what that difference is, “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit”.   

Let us return to 1 Corinthians 5:5, is the man referred to a Christian or not, if not why say “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”   Was the man committing a sexual sin and based on 1 Corinthians 6, is sexual sin a greater or lesser form of sin?  So, what kind of sin qualifies for the loss of one’s salvation and eternal security?  Many people who believe in conditional security think that eternal security gives the believer the idea that they can sin without consequences, does 1 Corinthians 5, sound like lack of consequences?   “Deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.”

One last comment, Matthew 7:21-23 (WEB) say:

(21)  Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  (22)  Many will tell me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, in your name cast out demons, and in your name do many mighty works?’  (23)  Then I will tell them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity.’

If a person could loss their salvation would the Lord have said “I never knew you”, or would He said “I once knew you”.

Craig Gunhouse



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