Zane C Hodges

I think you need to give us all a little more context. I can't make heads nor tails of what you have written.

 

Yes, you are still saved. There are Christians who "take a walk on the wild side," get convicted and come back to the Lord (especially in young adulthood). But the further you drift, the more desensitized you get and the less God can use you for the Kingdom.

I think believers can be in habitual sin for awhile but during this they are being convicted and at some point they come back. If they keep on in sin, however, and show no remorse or don't feel conviction, then they might not be truly saved.

Since you are asking the question and showing concern, I would say that you are saved, especially if you have renounced this lifestyle and came back to the Lord, which I assume you have.

 

My personal opinion of Zane C. Hodges is that he is extremely confused. He teaches that all one needs to do to be "saved" is to at one point in time intellectually assent to the Gospel message. He also teaches that there are two classes of Christians,

1. Those that are disobedient to Christ and who will spend a future millennium in a suburb of heaven where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

2. Those that are obedient to Christ and who will spend a future millennium reigning with Christ.

His doctrine is commonly called the doctrine of millennial exclusion. I don’t know of anyone on this message board who holds this doctrine. A similar doctrine is the doctrine of millennia punishment, popularized recently by Joey Faust. He teaches that disobedient Christians will spend a future millennium in hell and then spend the rest of eternity in heaven. There are at least three followers of Joey Faust on this message board, one of whom is a part-time “Baptist” Pastor.

Both of these doctrines are a consequence of attempting to harmonize the mainstream doctrines of eternal security with verses in the Bible that speak of those who were at one point Christians subsequently being in a place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When it come down to individual persons, we have to be very careful about judging them. But speaking more broadly, if a person is truly saved at age 12, there life will continue to show it throughout the rest of their life unless they fall from grace. They may go through a low period in their life where the presence of Christ in their life will become less obvious outwardly, but inwardly it will definitely remain obvious. If they fall from grace, however, the presence of Christ in their life will cease completely, and that will be manifested both outwardly and inwardly.

May I suggest that you very prayerfully and carefully study the following passages in the Bible,

1 John 3:1. See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
2. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
3. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
4. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.
5. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.
6. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.
7. Little children, make sure no one deceives you; the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous;
8. the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
9. No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.
10. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

Matt. 13:20. "The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy;
21. yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.

Mark 4:16. "In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy;
17. and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.

Luke 8:13. "Those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away.

John 15:5. "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
6. "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.
7. "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
8. "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.
9. "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10. "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.
11. "These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

1 Cor. 9:27. but I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.

1 Cor. 10:11. Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
12. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.

Col. 1:21. And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds,
22. yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach--
23. if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

2 Thes. 2:3. Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,
4. who opposes and exalts himself above every so- called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.
5. Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things?
6. And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed.
7. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way.
8. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;
9. that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders,
10. and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved.
11. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false,
12. in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God.

1 Tim. 4:1. But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,
2. by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron,
3. men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.

2 Tim 4:1. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:
2. preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.
3. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,
4. and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.

Heb. 3:12. Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.

Heb. 6:4. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit,
5. and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,
6. and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.
7. For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God;
8. but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed, and it ends up being burned.

Heb. 10:26. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
27. but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.
28. Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
29. How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?
30. For we know Him who said, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY." And again, "THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE."
31. It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

2 Pet. 2:1. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.
2. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned;
3. and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
4. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
5. and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;
6. and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;
7. and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
8. (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),
9. then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,
10. and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble when they revile angelic majesties,
11. whereas angels who are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling judgment against them before the Lord.
12. But these, like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed,
13. suffering wrong as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, as they carouse with you,
14. having eyes full of adultery that never cease from sin, enticing unstable souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children;
15. forsaking the right way, they have gone astray, having followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
16. but he received a rebuke for his own transgression, for a mute donkey, speaking with a voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet.
17. These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been reserved.
18. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error,
19. promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.
20. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
21. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them.
22. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT," and, "A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire."

2 Pet. 3:14. Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless,
15. and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you,
16. as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness,
18. but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Jude 1:4. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
5. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.
6. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day,
7. just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
8. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.
9. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, "The Lord rebuke you!"
10. But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.
11. Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
12. These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted;
13. wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.
14. It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones,
15. to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him."
16. These are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.
Keep Yourselves in the Love of God
17. But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
18. that they were saying to you, "In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts."
19. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly- minded, devoid of the Spirit.
20. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
21. keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

All Scriptures quoted above are from the NASB, 1995

 

The Teachings of Zane Hodges, Joseph Dillow, Robert Wilkin (The Grace Evangelical Society) and J.D.Faust

http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/hodgeshp.htm