Am I Lost Forever?
To my embarrassment and shame, my boyfriend and I went much further intimately than we intended to recently over Thanksgiving. I feel like I may have lost my salvation and standing as a child of God and can’t be brought back into God’s family. Do you have any insight on this?
Q. To my embarrassment and shame, my boyfriend and I went much further intimately than we intended to recently over Thanksgiving. We both are Christian adults and this is something we thought we had under control. (Obviously, I know that story is as old as the hills.) Although we didn’t have sex, I’m quite sure it was just as wrong in God’s eyes as if we had done that.
Both my boyfriend and I have talked and prayed about this after the fact and know we were wrong to go as far as we did. I know that God forgives and Christ told the woman caught in adultery that He didn’t condemn her and to go and sin no more.
My problem is the motivations going through my head and heart prior to and during the several times my boyfriend and I went too far. I knew that what we were doing was almost certainly wrong, but I didn’t want to pull back. I knew that I’d feel terribly guilty afterwards and that I’d come to God asking for forgiveness. I just figured I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.
That is terrible of me. Who did I think I was? How could I so methodically plan to manipulate grace? It’s like I’m spitting on the blood. I feel like I’ve committed an unforgivable sin by treating the Holy Spirit’s convictions as something I could rein in and use to get what I wanted (physical gratification, then forgiveness afterwards). The verses in Hebrews 6 and 10 are starting to terrify me now. I read the related parts on your study in Hebrews, but I just can’t see what makes them relate to fellowship rather than salvation. To me, it seems clear that I can damage my relationship with God so badly that He won’t take me back. I’m terrified that that’s what I’ve done. I’ve now found myself in a place where I genuinely regret what I did and would take it back if I could.
I feel like I may have lost my salvation and standing as a child of God, as the verses seem to indicate can’t and won’t be brought back into God’s family. I’m terrified and heartbroken about that. I love my God so much and hate my sin so completely and I really want to do better. I just hope I haven’t ruined my chances as the passages in Hebrews seem to be telling me. Do you have any insight on this?
A. Your letter underscores the terrible damage that teaching Hebrews 6:4-6 incorrectly has done in the Church. Certainly what you did pushed the limits of God’s law, and in your mind you may have exceeded them. But the Holy Spirit has convicted you of that and caused you to confess. According to 1 John 1:9 you’ve been forgiven and purified from all unrighteousness. It should be over and behind you, and you should now have a new resolve to resist temptation, praising God for His grace.
Hebrews 10:12-14 says that Jesus made one sacrifice for all time and made perfect forever those who are being made holy. That means that every sin that you ever have or ever will commit until the day you die was taken to the cross. From the day you first believed that, you were made perfect in God’s sight forever, even though you’re still in the process of being made holy.
But instead, your incorrect interpretation of this one verse has caused you to disregard all the others I listed, some from the mouth of the Lord Himself, that contradict what you’ve been taught. You’ve sunk into a whirlpool of guilt that has you convinced that after giving His life to save you the Lord would now discard you like a piece of trash and never take you back. This is exactly what Satan wants you to believe, and although I’m sure they aren’t aware of it, those who taught you have been of enormous help to him.
Paul was one of the strongest believers ever to walk among us. He spent 3 years at the foot of the Lord learning the Gospel (Gal.1:11-12,18) and was even taken to the throne of God and shown things that he was prevented from telling us. (2 Cor. 12:3-4) Yet he couldn’t keep himself from sinning. (Romans 7:18-20) Did God throw Him away? Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebekah, David, Solomon and many others all clearly disobeyed God and caused enormous problems for Him and the world. Peter publicly denied the Lord three times while he and the other disciples ran away and hid leaving Him to die alone. Did any of them receive God’s condemnation?
The people who taught you this will be judged severely (James 3:1), but you have let this one incorrect teaching cancel everything in the Bible that contradicts it. Which is more likely? Was God lying to you in all those other places, or have you misunderstood His truth in this one place? And do you really believe that this is the first time since you were saved that you’ve willfully sinned? Or that it will be the last? Think about it.
