In this article, we are going to debunk the questions that Mike Gendron asks Catholics. He asks these questions as if Catholics cannot answer them. Here, we are going to answer them once and for all. He recently asked thirteen of these questions during our debate in the last five minutes. Unrealistically, he expected me to answer them all. As you can see, this is going to be a pretty long article series; so, to ask them within five minutes was not very honest! But they are good questions, and we wanted to answer them.
We are going to show that not only does he not know the Bible well, but he does not understand context. Every one of these questions can be answered by looking at the context of the verse. See, many anti-Catholics just memorize 20 to 30 verses, and they just repeat them over and over. Whatever somebody asks, they just throw a verse to answer. If they hear something else, they repeat another verse. They just take and pull from one of these verses and read them into their own preconceived theology. But if you read the context and see exactly what the passage is talking about, it does not mean what they say it does. It’s clear that they are reading their own theology into the Bible. Here are some examples:
# 1. Salvation is secured by the promises and power of Almighty God. How can one who has been born again of incorruptible seed die again? (1 Peter 1:23)
The first question Mike asked was “How can someone who is born of incorruptible seed die again?” He quoted 1 Peter 1:23, “For through the living and eternal word of God, you have been born again as the children of a parent who is immortal, not mortal.” And the answer for Mike is to look at the context. The context tells us how we can die again. Let us read what Peter says in context by reading 1 Peter 1:21-24, “who through him believe in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have purified yourselves by obedience to the truth for sincere mutual love, love one another intensely from a pure heart. You have been born anew, not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God.”
How were our souls purified? Through obedience to the truth. How do we become born again? Through the living and abiding word of God. By abiding in him. I mean, how do we become corrupt in the first place? How did we lose life in the first place? Through sin. The Bible says in Romans 6:23 that the “wage of sin is death.” Sin separates us from God, but Christ took care of that. He reconciled us back to God, and now we are in him. However, if we leave him, or if we fall away, or if we stop following him or become disobedient, then we lose that life. And this is exactly what Christ himself teaches. Listen to what it says in John 15:1-10, “I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit. Without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered, and they gather them and throw them into the fire. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father’s commandments and I abide in his love. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Notice it says, “If you do not abide in me, you will be cast out and thrown into the fire.” Notice it does NOT say, “You were never part of me; therefore, you are going to be cast into the fire.” No. These are people who already abide in him. These are saved Christians.
He says that if you do not abide in him, if you do not follow the commandments, if you do not do what he commands, then you are going to be cast out. What keeps us in Christ? His living word, his grace, and obedience to them both all keep us connected to Christ. And what casts us out? Disobedience, not following him, bearing bad fruit and going back to the old ways of living. How do we go from incorruptible to corruptible? By being separate from the vine. Jesus says, “I am the vine, and you are the branches.” So as long as we are connected to the vine, we are fine. We are in Christ. We cannot be harmed. Even if we sin a little, Christ will forgive us. But it is when we break away from the vine that we fall away and go back into our old ways of living. Perhaps, we fall into apostasy or other things like that. We can fall away and fall out of abiding in him, and that is when we start to become corruptible again.
I recommend reading John 14 and John 15. They are so clear that obedience, faithfulness, following commandments, and bearing good fruit are all conditions for being saved and staying saved. If you do not, you are going to be cast out and thrown into the fire.
# 2. How can a new creation return to what has passed away? (2 Corinthians 5:17)
The next question Mike asks is “How can a new creation return to what has passed away?” Again, the answer is sin and falling away from Christ. And again, we say – read the context, Mike! It is in the context. Let us see what the whole passage, not just one sentence, has to say. “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him no longer thus. Therefore, if anyone who is in Christ, he is a new creation. The oldest passed away and the new has come,” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17).
Now notice that this fits perfectly with what we just said in John 14 and John 15. If we are in Christ, if we are living for him, if we are in relationship with him, if we are being obedient to him and following his commands, then we are in him. We are on our way to heaven. However, if we fall away from that, if we are cut off, if we return to living in the flesh, then it says, “we once were regarded Christ according to the flesh.” If we return to the flesh, then we no longer have Christ. And, as many Protestant scholars understand, including top Protestant scholars’ commentaries and theological dictionaries, Paul would not warn us so often against returning to the flesh if we could not.
Some people say that once you are in Christ, you can never fall away. Well, Paul would not be warning us that we can fall away if that were true. He would not be telling us to stay in Christ. If we just automatically do that, it does not make any sense for him to warn us not to fall away. The fact that we can is why he warns us. It is kind of like the show on Netflix called Cobra Kai. I do not know if you have seen Cobra Kai, but there is a man named Terry Silver. In his early days, he was a bad man (psychotic, rude, mean), and he left that lifestyle. He found a woman. He got married, made lots of money, lives in a huge house, sips wine, lives on the beach, and lives a very peaceful lifestyle. But Sensei Kreese, another karate master, came up to him and wanted to use him in his plan to get back at Daniel’s son. Terry said, “No, Kreese. I left that life behind me. I am sorry! I appreciate your offer, but I left that behind me a long time ago. It is not even part of me anymore.” But, slowly Kreese started bugging and influencing him, and he made one little choice in the wrong direction. And that one little choice turned into two and three, until suddenly, this old side of him started taking over. Terry even admits halfway through the series that there was a part of him coming out that he did not even know was there anymore. It was so dormant that he did not even know it was there. That is how sin works too. The devil can get us to do one little thing to walk away from Christ. If we do not get back with Christ quickly, it could turn into two or three little things, until suddenly, we are starting to fall away from Christ. I know many people, both Catholic and Protestant, who have fallen away from Christ through sin. They went back to living in the flesh, to not trusting Christ anymore and to feeling like they are being judged. That is how we fall away.
And again, this is exactly what the Bible teaches. This is confirmed in holy scripture. In Galatians 5:17-22, it talks about the war between the flesh and the spirit. It is talking to saved people who already have Christ. And Paul is telling them to live in the spirit. If you live in the spirit, you are great, but if you go and live in the flesh, you are not. Listen to what it says. “I say to you, walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh for these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do: holy things. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law now. The works of the flesh are evidence, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like that. I warned you, as I have warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven. But the fruit of spirit is love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness.”
And likewise, in 1 Corinthians 6:9-12 and Revelation 21, it says that idolaters, fornicators, homosexuals, drunkards, and a long list of sinners, will not enter the kingdom of heaven. This is what it means to live in the flesh, and if we claim to follow Christ, but we start going back to live in the flesh, we are going to be cut off. By our own choices, we forfeit that new life. We throw it away, in some sense, because Paul says that if you have this new life, then walk in it, walk in the spirit. People say, “Oh! But if you are a true Christian, you will walk in the spirit.” Yes, in general, but we can be deceived and walk away.
To say differently means that we do not have free will. And, of course, we have free will. Of course we can be deceived. And, of course, the devil is going to tempt us. But if we stay faithful to Christ, then we are safe. If we do not, we return to what we were before, and we will need to be redeemed and come back to Christ.
Like those two Hillsong pastors, both of them fell away from Christ. One became an atheist, and the other became a fornicator. Both were cut off from Christ. They did not have his life in them. They were not living for Christ anymore. However, one was convicted of sin. When it became public, he returned to Christ. Unfortunately, the other has not. He stayed away from Christ. One has come back, and he was reconciled again. One has not been, and he is cut off from Christ forever. If he does not repent, it does not matter if he was saved beforehand. If you go back to the way you were living, the Bible says that you will be cut off. And it says that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
The Bible cannot be clearer, Mike. If you do these things, you will lose your salvation. Now, of course, Mike believes in a Calvinist theology. It teaches that once you accept Christ, you are predestined to automatically go to heaven. There is nothing you can do. There are other people who say that too. You could murder, rape and become an atheist, yet you will still go to heaven once you are saved. Yes. Really, people believe this! Protestants believe this. Thankfully, it is not the majority view.
#3. How can one who has been perfected forever be found imperfect? (Hebrews 10:14)
In this one he asks, quoting Hebrews 10:14, how can one who has been perfected forever be found imperfect? Again, I remind Mike to read the context of scripture, as we have been doing, and interpret the passage properly – not with preconceived Calvinistic views.
First of all, Hebrews 10:14 is contrasting the New Testament high priest, Jesus Christ, to the Old Testament high priests. Before Christ, they had to continually offer sacrifices because the Bible makes it clear that they were imperfect. They had to do it again and again and again. But what Christ did once and for all on the cross is perfect, and he offered it to the Father for us. He is not saying that we are perfect forever right now because the verb tense in the same sentence is continuous: we are being sanctified.
How can we be perfect if we are still being sanctified? We are not. That means we are still imperfect, we still sin, we still have work to do, and Christ has work to do in us. But the text is talking about Christ’s one perfect sacrifice. It was done once and for all so that anyone, at any time, from anywhere, can be forgiven and find forgiveness and find new life in him.
That is what the passage is saying. But again, Calvinist theology reads their own theology into these Bible verses. They see every verse in the Bible under their own theology rather than seeing the verses for what they actually say. And again, I can prove this. Just ten verses later, it literally says that you can lose your salvation. It literally says that you can lose the sacrifice that Jesus gave you by going back to sinning. Everything I have literally been saying this whole time is again confirmed. Listen to what it says. “If we sin deliberately after receiving knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains sacrifice for sins but a fearful prospect of judgment and a flaming fire that is going to consume the adversaries.” Now, if you go on and read the rest of the passage (up until verse 36), it talks about those who had received and were counted as part of the blood of the covenant. These people were sanctified, and they fell away, which means these are believers who had fallen away and lost the sacrifice that Christ gave them. That is why Revelation 3:5 says that your name can be blotted out of the Book of Life. How then, Mike, can someone who is perfected forever go back to being imperfect? It is by choosing to live in the flesh, to not remain in Christ, to be cut off, to not be connected to the vine, to sin willfully, and to go back to your old life – just as we have been saying, as Terry Silver did, as that Hillsong pastor did, and many, many others as well.
Again, listen to what 2 Peter 2:20-22 says. “For if after they [Christians] have escaped the defilements of this world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in them and overcome. The last state has become worse than the first. It would have been better for them to have not known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back to the holy commandment delivered to them. What the proverb says has happened to them is true: the dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow after washing herself returns to wallowing in the mire.”
These people have been washed, sanctified, and justified. That is the language of the Bible here, and it says that the dog returns to its vomit. In other words, you are going back to live in the sinful lifestyle that you chose. Some people get entangled in sin, and they run to Christ, and they pray, and they struggle against this sin. But some have it overtake them, and they fall away.
Those are the people that lose the life of Christ within them. Hebrews mentions that that sacrifice that Christ did for them no longer remains. Those are scary words. And I have seen many debates on once saved-always saved, eternal security. Even Protestant versus Protestant, where they argue with each other. Many times, they admit during the debate that it’s possible that this is not true. That is a scary thing. I mean, one’s soul might be lost forever. Yes, it might be, but that is why you need to stay in Christ. They are doing this out of fear. It is a fear-based religion for many people. I am not saying everybody, but for many people it is.
But we do not need to fear. If we have Christ, we just need to stay faithful and trust him.
#4. How can God’s irrevocable gift of eternal life be taken back? (Romans 11:29)
Next, Mike asks how can God’s irrevocable gift of eternal life be taken back? He quotes Romans 11:29, which literally has nothing to do with Christians.
Part of the problem is that he does not read the context of the passage. He just finds something that seems to apply to his worldview, and he takes it. I used to do that when I first started apologetics. I would latch on to anything that proved my point of view, whether it was true or not, and it was dishonest.
It is talking about Jews, not Christians. The whole context is referring to Jewish people and how they used to be part of the covenant, but they have been cut off. Because they have been cut off, we have been grafted in. Even though God had mercy on us, because of their disobedience at one point in time, God is going to have mercy on them as well so that they can be saved.
Why? His call is irrevocable. What call? What gift? The gift he gave to the Jews. He is not forgetting it. It is going to last forever, and there is going to be a time of mercy for them. That is what this passage is saying. But Mike is reading his theology into the text again. Just believe, and you are saved once and for all. That is what the Bible says. It is an irrevocable gift, and it is not talking about Christians, Mike! It is so sad! Seriously, please say a prayer for Mike. He is very confused. And this is what people do. They construct their theologies into the Bible rather than reading the Bible and getting theology out of it.
Also, one thing we have to remember is that God does not ever take away his gifts. God is faithful. God is true. God is faithful to the end. It is we who are not faithful. It is we who choose not to remain in the vine. God is going to keep us forever if we choose to stay in him. It is a choice because we have free will.
I know people, like Mike and Calvinists, who do not believe in free will, but the rest of Christianity does. Muslims do not. Calvinists do not. The fact is, we do have free will. If we choose to break away from the vine, then we can lose that. If he just reads the context of Romans 11, he will see that we can lose everything through disobedience.
I mean, literally, you just have to read the context, Mike! He reads one verse (Romans 11:29) and ignores the rest. If he read just a few verses earlier, he would see that you can actually lose your salvation in no ambiguous terms. Let us see what it says in Romans 11:19-22. “You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So, do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise, you also will be cut off.”
Wow! That is not only scary, it is so clear. You can be cut off, he will not spare you, and you must remain in Him, again, connected to the vine. Otherwise, as John 15 says, you will be cast out and thrown into the fire.
All of these passages match up together. They all support each other. We not only have the proximate context, but we also have the remote context of all of these different verses matching up with one or another and saying the exact same thing to show that it is true. Not to mention, there is the even more remote context of the belief that salvation can be lost of the earliest Christians. That belief also has the unanimous consensus of Christians down throughout history.
#5. How can the good shepherd who gave his life for his sheep fail to protect and keep them. How can the perpetual intercession of Jesus be denied? (John 10)
Now again, believers of eternal security read eternal security into every passage of the Bible. Jesus literally is not only not speaking of eternal security here, it is also not even on his mind. It is not even on Paul’s mind or anyone’s mind in any of these passages. It is not even taught here. What is taught is that Jesus is contrasting evil teachers, false guides, people who were corrupt, and he is saying “You Pharisees are bad. I put you in charge, and yet, you are not good shepherds, you are bad shepherds. You do not care for the sheep. You are not leading them and guiding them, and you are not giving them the truth or salvation. But I am the good shepherd. I, unlike you, care for my sheep. I love them, and I want them to be saved. I am going to give them eternal life.”
Obviously, this does not have to do with eternal security. It is showing a contrast between the Pharisees, who are not leading people to life, and Christ, who is leading them to life. That is the context of John 10. But where is eternal security found? Nowhere. Where does it say that we cannot fall away? Where does it say that we cannot wander? It does not.
In fact, John 10 says that we can wander. Have you ever heard of the parable of the 99 sheep in Luke? “How many of you who have one sheep wander away from the 99 would not go after that sheep. And if he finds it, he puts it up on his shoulder with great joy and brings it back.”
Notice he uses the word IF. If he finds it, meaning that he might not find the wandering sheep. It could wander and stray away forever. Of course, the good Shepherd is going to go after his sheep and look for them and call for them. But if they do not come back and he cannot find them, then they are lost.
#6. How can the perpetual intercession of Jesus be denied? (Hebrews 7: 25)
Like in all of these other passages that we have been talking about, you have to look at the context to properly answer the question. Mike uses Hebrews 7:25 to ask, how can the perpetual intercession of Jesus be denied? Easy. It cannot. It does not. It is not going to be denied, but that does not mean that it proves eternal security!
I am being humorous here, but literally every one of these has a context and every context answers the question. Again, this does not have to do with eternal security. Calvinists are reading these passages into their own theology, which they already made. What the passage is saying is the same as John 10.
It is contrasting similar passages. We have already talked about the Old Testament priesthood versus the New Testament priesthood and specifically “Jesus” as the high priest. In the Old Testament, they had to offer sacrifice again and again and again. It was imperfect and just never satisfied. But Jesus died once and for all. This satisfied the price for sin and perfectly reconciled us back to God. Unlike the Old Testament priest, he intercedes on our behalf perpetually. In other words, he does not have to go back and offer sacrifice again and again and again. He does it once. He continually prays and intercedes on our behalf – not just once a year in the holy of holies.
This is contrasting the two priesthoods to show the difference and NOT to show eternal security. What the Bible is saying is that anytime, anywhere, anyone who comes to Christ, because of his perfect sacrifice on a cross, can be saved, find forgiveness, find healing and reconciliation with God at any time.
It does not say that we are just perpetually in that state because we have read many verses already that have showed that we are not. You can fall away and you can be lost. You can be cast out. All of this fits with Catholic theology. Even that he intercedes for us so that anytime we have sinned, we can find forgiveness – not just once a year when the priest goes into the holy of holies and makes atonement for all the sins of Israel. No, we can find it anytime because he perpetually intercedes for us before the father. If we go to him, he will mediate on our behalf before the father. That is what the Bible is saying. It doesn’t say that once you believe in him, you are automatically going to heaven.
