Can a Believer Forfeit His Allotment?

In the previous article, the central question was whether all believers will reign with Christ. The occasion was 2 Timothy 2:12, from which it is sometimes inferred that only believers who endure will reign with Christ. But other passages of Scripture are also cited in support of that view. After all, Paul warns in several places that paramours, idolaters, the greedy, and others who practice such things will receive no allotment in God’s Kingdom (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21; Eph. 5:5).

That brings the same issue into view from another direction. Can a believer forfeit his allotment in the Kingdom and thereby lose his share in Christ’s reign? At first glance, there also seems to be a strong case for that idea.

The reasoning then runs as follows: believers cannot lose their salvation, but apparently something else is at stake. A believer who persists in such practices remains saved, but forfeits his allotment in the Kingdom and thereby his share in Christ’s reign. That seems like a logical conclusion. For why else would Paul warn believers so seriously?

some of you were these

It is precisely 1 Corinthians 6 that gives a decisive answer. After Paul has listed those who will receive no allotment in God’s Kingdom, he writes:

“And some of you were these, but you are bathed off, but you are hallowed, but you were justified…”
— 1 Corinthians 6:11

Pay particular attention to that one word: were. Paul does not say: some of you are these and are therefore in danger of losing your allotment. On the contrary, he explicitly distinguishes his readers from the category of people he has just described.

That is all the more remarkable because the ecclesia in Corinth was hardly exemplary. Paul even calls the Corinthians “fleshly” (1 Cor. 3:1,3). There were factions, lawsuits among themselves, and serious abuses. Believers can evidently act in a very fleshly way. And yet Paul says to them: some of you were these.

There is evidently, then, a difference between sinning and being characterized by sin. Paul does not say that someone who commits prostitution thereby automatically belongs to the category of “paramours” who receive no allotment. He describes people according to what they practice, according to what characterizes their walk. A believer too can fall, and the letter to Corinth shows that this can even be serious. But falling into sin is still something different from practicing sin as a way of life.

That is precisely why Paul does not write in verse 11: some of you are these and must stop doing this so that you do not lose your allotment. He says: “some of you were these.” And then he points to what happened to them: they were bathed off, hallowed, and justified. That first expression is significant here. God’s work was evidently not limited to their justification; they were also bathed off – cleansed from the practices that had previously characterized them.

why, then, the warning?

Why, then, does Paul warn them? Because a warning does not necessarily mean that a believer can lose his allotment. Paul sets before his readers the practices that characterize those who have no allotment in God’s Kingdom, precisely so that they may realize that such practices do not fit what God has made of them.

We find the same principle in Galatians 5:19-21. Paul speaks there about those committing such things – the works of the flesh. Of them he says that they will receive no allotment in God’s Kingdom. The issue, then, is not whether a believer ever commits a work of the flesh, but those for whom such works are the practice. Ephesians 5:5 likewise speaks in such terms about the paramour, the unclean, and the greedy person.

Nowhere does it say that these people first possessed an allotment and subsequently lost it through their conduct. In fact, earlier in Ephesians Paul had written that believers are sealed with the spirit of promise:

“… which is an earnest of the enjoyment of our allotment”
— Ephesians 1:14

An earnest is a guarantee. God Himself guarantees the allotment He has promised. Paul is therefore not warning believers that God’s guarantee can somehow lapse after all. He is pointing out that the practices of those who have no allotment do not fit those whom God has bathed off, hallowed, and justified.

The Corinthians were certainly not always an attractive example of this. They were fleshly and could fall deeply. But it is precisely to them that Paul says:

“Some of you were these.”

For God does not merely justify the believer; He bathes him off and hallows him. Here too, it is God who does His work.

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