Security of the Believer--as Long as You Believe

In Romans 8, there is a long list of things that cannot separate us from the love of God. It would seem to be an all-inclusive list: “35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Wow. That’s encouraging. At the same time, though, in Isaiah, God says, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.” Is there a contradiction here? Is this Old Testament vs. New Testament? No, really it isn’t; look at the passage in Romans again. We are not promised that we can’t separate ourselves from God. Everything in the list is external to one’s self.
Many people use Romans 8 as an excuse to say that one cannot fall away, once one has made a profession of faith. It is true that God will remain faithful to us, as long as we remain faithful to Him, but He doesn’t take prisoners: You always have freedom of choice, even in terms of whether you choose to remain faithful or not.
In explaining the parable of the sower, Jesus said, “They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.” Now why would Jesus talk about falling away, if one couldn’t fall away? Further, in the parable of the foolish virgins, the foolish virgins couldn’t go in to the wedding because their lamps had gone out. Please notice that it doesn’t say that they couldn’t go in because their lamps had never been lit, which would indicate that they had never shined for Jesus, but because their lamps had gone out, they were no longer shining for Jesus.
In Hebrews 6, it talks about falling away. Some people have said that it is describing a “hypothetical situation,” something that could never really happen. It does say “it is impossible” and it also says, “if they shall fall away” but it goes on to say, “to renew them again unto repentance.” I don’t think it means that it is impossible to fall away, it just impossible to renew someone unto repentance after they have fallen away. I think that grammatically, that makes more sense, logically, it doesn’t make sense to spend so much time warning the church about falling away if that could never happen, and spiritually, if Hebrews says that Jesus is wrong, and we can never fall away, then we should disregard Hebrews (but that’s a hypothetical situation, because Hebrews doesn’t contradict Jesus).
1 Timothy 4 talks about people departing from the faith, speaking lies in hypocrisy. Should we expect to meet those people in Heaven? I think not.
In 2 Peter 2, it tells us that someone who escapes the pollutions of this world through Jesus, and then is entangled again in the things of the world, that “… it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” Wait, you mean that it is better to be lost than to be backslid? That almost makes me wish that I had never known the truth. Then again, though, it is definitely not a good thing to be lost.
Someone told me once that you can’t ever lose your salvation, because God holds you in His hand. I haven’t been able to find that particular scripture (that doesn’t mean it isn’t there, just that I haven’t found it), but, as I said earlier, God doesn’t hold prisoners. It seems to me that, if you’re in God’s hand, and you try to leave, that he isn’t going to stop you. He will guide and direct us as long as we are willing to be led and directed, but He is not going to again stretch out His hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people. He’s had enough of that, that’s why He has chosen us, in hopes that we will not be like those people.