Mike,

I just finished reading your response to someone who asked the same question I just asked you in the previous email. You really nailed it down for me. I think I was barking up the right tree when I said that I did indeed “sin” (divorce) in ignorance for if I had the “TRUTH” in me then I would have known, and it (TRUTH) would have performed it in me. So indeed then I could not have been “elect” but I think I can confidently say that Christ in me is capable of strengthening me with power to endure in Him until the end. I suppose that would be “hope of election”!

If I missed it, I am sure you will correct me, and thanks for that as well.

M____

Hi M____,

Thank you for your question. I am thankful that you found your answer on the site.

No, you have not missed the point, but I just want to add that there is nothing you have done, or that anyone has done, that is not covered by Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Just look at what Paul says here.

1Co 6:9  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
1Co 6:10  Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
1Co 6:11  And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
1Co 6:12  All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

There is not one person among us who is not guilty of one of those sins, and yet we are told: “but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.”

What we did before we came to know the true Christ and what we repent of after coming to know the true Christ, are all covered by that sacrifice. That covering of our sins is so thorough that King David, in type, even after his adulterous, murderous relationship with Bathsheba, is still received back as washed, sanctified and justified to the point of being considered a virgin. It is of these very same formerly fornicating and adulterous Corinthians that we are told:

2Co 11:2  For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.

The “impossible” part of Hebrews six is this:

Heb 6:4  For [it is] impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
Heb 6:5  And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
Heb 6:6  If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put [ him] to an open shame.

We have the examples of Esau and King Saul as God’s rejected anointed, and both men typify those who have ‘tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the holy ghost.’ Both men typify those ‘have tasted the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the world to come’, who knew Christ and returned to Babylon. “Crucifying the Son of God afresh” is the same as “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.” The sad part is that both Esau and King Saul demonstrate that when we are in this state, we are not able to acknowledge our sad state.

That is the only thing that separates King David from King Saul. King Saul never in his life took a man’s one wife away from him and then killed that man to cover up his adultery. But King Saul did do something even worse, and that was to refuse to acknowledge that he was the man who had disobeyed and rejected his own God. He did this by presumptuously assuming the role of a priest and by disobeying the command to destroy all of the Amalekites. In both cases King Saul shifted the blame to Samuel for being late and to the people for wanting to keep the best of the spoils of Amalek to sacrifice to God.

1Sa 15:1  Samuel also said unto Saul, The LORD sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the LORD.
1Sa 15:2  Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.
1Sa 15:3  Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
1Sa 15:4  And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.
1Sa 15:5  And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley.
1Sa 15:6  And Saul said unto the Kenites, Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt. So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.
1Sa 15:7  And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt.
1Sa 15:8  And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.
1Sa 15:9  But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.
1Sa 15:10  Then came the word of the LORD unto Samuel, saying,
1Sa 15:11  It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments. And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the LORD all night.
1Sa 15:12  And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel, saying, Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
1Sa 15:13  And Samuel came to Saul: and Saul said unto him, Blessed be thou of the LORD: I have performed the commandment of the LORD.
1Sa 15:14  And Samuel said, What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?
1Sa 15:15  And Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites: for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.
1Sa 15:16  Then Samuel said unto Saul, Stay, and I will tell thee what the LORD hath said to me this night. And he said unto him, Say on.
1Sa 15:17  And Samuel said, When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the LORD anointed thee king over Israel?
1Sa 15:18  And the LORD sent thee on a journey, and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.
1Sa 15:19  Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
1Sa 15:20  And Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the LORD, and have gone the way which the LORD sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
1Sa 15:21  But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the LORD thy God in Gilgal.
1Sa 15:22  And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
1Sa 15:23  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

God “will have obedience and not sacrifice”, and He will also have a “meek and contrite spirit” which says “against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this thing” when told “thou art the man.”

2Sa 12:7  And Nathan said to David, Thou [art] the man. Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I anointed thee king over Israel, and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul;
2Sa 12:8  And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel and of Judah; and if [that had been] too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things.
2Sa 12:9  Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife [to be] thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
2Sa 12:10  Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.
2Sa 12:11  Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give [them] unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
2Sa 12:12  For thou didst [it] secretly: but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.
2Sa 12:13  And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.
2Sa 12:14  Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also [that is] born unto thee shall surely die.

Whenever we sin against our brothers, even “the least of these, my brothers”, we are really sinning against God and against Christ. Not one person who acknowledges his sins has the spirit of Esau and King Saul, who simply never could do that. We have all been unrepentant in the past, but it was done in ignorance, and God has had mercy on all of us who are concerned that we may have committed “the unpardonable sin”. That is not a Biblical phase, and there is no sin which is not pardonable. However, it is still impossible to renew a person to the faith if he is not given to acknowledge that it is self-righteous pride which keeps him from saying “I have sinned against the Lord.” That is the difference between the spirit of King David and the spirit of King Saul. We are all King Saul before we become King David, but King Saul must be destroyed before we can become King David, who is a type of “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col 1:27).

So no one who is truly repentant for his sin is guilty of that attitude. Those who are in that state will always be blaming someone else for their mistakes and for their plight. They will be disobeying God before the whole world, while like King Saul, ruling God’s people, and claiming to be obeying Him before the whole world. That is the spirit of both Esau and King Saul.

We are plainly told that Esau “found no place for repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears” simply because he was never given to appreciate that blessing. To him the blessing of a “poor and contrite [repentant] spirit” had no more value than a bowl of red pottage. One of the most valuable parts of the blessing of true and deep repentance is the ability to confess that one’s own sins are against the Lord. That was Job’s problem, that was Esau’s problem, and that was King Saul’s problem. It was “the pride of life”, and it is accompanied by a bitter and self-righteous spirit.

Heb 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;
Heb 12:16  Lest there [be] any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.
Heb 12:17  For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.

Whether we repent or not in this age is not a matter of our fabled ‘free will’. Rather it is a matter of whether we are given the “gift” of faith (Eph 2:8-10) and “find place for repentance.” The blessing of being given such a humble repentant spirit simply has no place in the proud spirit of the Lord’s rejected anointed, signified by Esau or King Saul. We are all born with a self-righteous, rebellious, carnal mind and spirit, and it is given only to very few in this present age to have that spirit burned out of them while yet in these vessels of clay.

Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

I hope this helps and edifies you in some way. I hope you can see that a person who refuses to repent after having sinning finds no place for repentance, even though he may see that he has lost his blessing.

Heb 6:4  For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,
Heb 6:5  And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come,
Heb 6:6  If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Heb 6:7  For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:
Heb 6:8  But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. [“Saved, yet so as by fire”, (1Co 3:15) “the lake of fire/second death/white throne judgment”)

1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire [“the lake of fire/white throne judgment].

The man of God will “find a place for repentance” and will become a changed person in this present age. God’s elect do not worry about whether they are God’s elect simply because they have been given the faith to believe that God is “working all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11). What all of God’s elect do is remain vigilant, diligent, and sober, and they never take their election for granted, even as they know that every day of their life has already been written in God’s book.

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.

Php 2:12  Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Php 2:13  For [G1063: ‘Gar’, because] it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike