Impossible to be Forgiven?
It is commonly assumed, especially by unbelievers, that they can wait to seek God's forgiveness until they're on their death bed; the forgiveness option will always exist.
But is this true? Is God's forgiveness always available? Not according to Scripture.
When Isaiah wrote, “Seek the Lord while He may be found …” (Isaiah 55:6), he seemed to indicate certain limits that we should be mindful of—restrictions related to time, constraints conditioned by capacity, motivations curbed by opposition, or opportunities controlled by God.
It simply isn’t true that God is always accessible to us, no matter what. Even Jesus made this point when he encouraged people to respond “while you have the light.”
Limiting Factors
Addressing the way this principle relates to our lives, J.H. Jowett observed, “The vivid illumination is not constant. Life’s visions do not shine and glow like brilliant and continuous noons. The lucid seasons are rare and infrequent. They come and they go, bright intervals in the wastes of grey twilight and darker night.”1
So the chirpy optimism that says a believer can accelerate his search for God anytime, anywhere, has not taken into account several factors that may prevent this from happening.
One of these factors has to do with our past pattern of choices. If this pattern is one of self-indulgence, or one where there is an addiction to worldly pleasure, there will be a diminished capacity to see and seize the things of God.
Frank Boreham, the prolific British-born Baptist writer, remarked: “… we make our decisions, and then our decisions turn round and make us.”2 This principle is clearly embedded in the II Kings 17:15 (KJV) declaration about idolatrous Israel, “… they followed vanity, and became vain .…” The governing principle here: The magnet that draws also holds!
Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, stated this principle succinctly, “We will be that which we follow.”3 Fully agreeing, the Boston preacher A.J. Gordon declared, “We become inevitably and insensibly assimilated to that which most completely absorbs our time and attention.”4
Even before this cementing occurs, however, we will find it increasingly difficult to choose against our preference. As many others have learned: The steeper the decline and the longer its course, the more difficult a different choice becomes.
Another factor that limits our freedom to reverse spiritual drifting and suddenly get right with God is the environment in which we find ourselves. If this environment is one where the presence of God is scarcely felt and where the truths of God, if uttered at all, are severely edited, there can be an anesthetizing of soul that will drastically damage an unbeliever.
There are superficial people who have no desire for God. This factor may be overcome, certainly, but it is a factor, formidable enough to sedate a person to the point one’s appetite for the eternal is never aroused.
The biblical record discloses yet another factor affecting our pursuit of God, and it is this: There are only certain times in our lives, determined by our omniscient Lord, when the Holy Spirit makes private appeals that could forever alter our spiritual biographies. But if we resist these stirrings of the Holy Spirit, these love-sent invitations of inspired truth, the opportunity presented may soon pass, resulting then in a new layer of hardness to encrust our already obstinate hearts.
The Puritan preacher Thomas Watson warned those recalcitrant in sin, “You have in your lifetime repulsed the Spirit of God, and are you sure he will come at your call?”5 He may not. For the one who trifles with truth and stiff-arms God risks incalculable damage to the soul that time itself may not provide the opportunities to overcome.
The time for all of us is short. Our opportunities to grow in God are numbered. The grace we refuse may be the last time such grace is offered. The test we keep failing may not be administered again. Stephen Charnock warned, “There is such a thing as a day of grace, shorter than the days of a man’s life.”6 Opportunities for timely obedience, therefore, should not be squandered.
Payday, Some Day
There was a song, now decades old, that said of God, "He'll always say I forgive." Actually, he won't; and Scripture explains why.
Toward the end of the first chapter of Romans, we are told three times God gave them up (verses, 24, 26, 28).
You see, it is possible to say one no to God too many. It is possible to cross a line beyond which a person can't be retrieved. It is possible to have Ichabod written all over a person, for which there is no hope. The Bible calls this being a reprobate. And for reprobates, forgiveness is impossible.
Once a reprobate crosses that line, there will be no further appeals from God, no attempts to draw this person, no attempts to save this person. Those opportunities will be in the past—forever and irrevocably gone. To see this person—and he may not be that old— is to be looking at a dead man.
Was it because of a particular sin this person became a reprobate? No, not that. When Jesus spoke of the unpardonable sin, blaspheming against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:32, 32), the point of that was not that offending Jesus was permissible but offending the Holy Spirit isn't.
The real point is this: Since no man on his own can seek God (Romans 3:11), and since only the Holy Spirit can bring us to him, then if we won't let the Holy Spirit do that work, there's no other way. We're lost.
Jesus further said, this person “will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31–32). The age to come? Do you mean there will be a second chance then? No, the wording here stresses permanence; only that. The Bible says nothing about God granting forgiveness to someone after death.
Roman Catholics speak of purgatory, a time of suffering followed by release into Heaven. But that view also is nowhere in Scripture. Even Cardinal Neuman virtually admitted that when he said that purgatory was based "on the slightest scriptural germ." Yet even men like C.S. Lewis held a similar and erroneous view.
As for a second chance, there were many, many chances while alive on earth. But conscience can be hushed. The truth can be turned into a lie. Salvation can be rejected. Damnation can come—and never end.
The Bible say it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). This rules out reincarnation, universalism, and the possibility of a salvation offer from God after death.
Instead, there is the finality of “what is written is written.” Meaning, it's over! No more chances! No more opportunities to repent. There is only the closed door, the damned soul, perpetual darkness, and unrelenting punishment.
Notes:
1. John Henry Jowett, Silver Lining: Messages of Hope and Cheer, Kindle Edition, 2010; Kindle locations: 576-578.
2. Frank Boreham, Mushrooms on the Moor, Public Domain Books, Kindle Edition, 2009; Kindle locations: 436-437.
3. Amy Carmichael, Whispers of His Power, (Ft. Washington, PA., CLC Publications, 2001), p.248.
4. A.J. Gordon, Fifty Eight A.J. Gordon Quotations, extracted from Northfield Year-Book (Wenham, Massachusetts, Gordon College Archives, 2007), p.87.
5. Thomas Watson, The Doctrine of Repentance, Kindle Edition, 2010; Kindle locations: 961-962.
6. Stephen Charnock, The Works of Stephen Charnock, Kindle Edition, 2011; Kindle location: 5012.
