Eternal Security In Early Anabaptism

 

Although modern Anabaptist theology generally teaches the possibility of losing one's salvation, there are references which show that early Anabaptism had a portion of believers who believed in eternal security. Now, Anabaptism was just an umbrella term which means "re-bapizer", thus the Anabaptists were known for refusing to baptize infants. There is some controversy on if Anabaptism started as one movement "monogenesis" or if Anabaptism started from multiple movements which came to be independently "polygenesis". Despite this, they were all unified on the view that infant baptism and real presence in the Supper are not biblical.

Now, Anabaptism has never been totally unified doctrinally. Today most Anabaptists are Mennonites, which teach a kind of Arminian theology. However, we first find a reference to Anabaptists teaching eternal security in the Augsburg confession, which states in Article XII:

 "They condemn the Anabaptists, who deny that those once justified can lose the Holy Ghost. Also those who contend that some may attain to such perfection in this life that they cannot sin."

The Lutheran churches thus condemned a portion of the Anabaptists for teaching that one cannot lose the Holy Ghost, which means that they were aware of the doctrine of eternal security being taught in these circles. It is apparent from these comments that some of the early Anabaptists held that you cannot lose your salvation. Although, despite this fact it is also true that we know that there were other Anabaptists very hostile to the idea, as we see in the writings of Leupold Scharnschlager:

Even today some understand Christ and Paul as ascribing righteousness and life to faith alone, as if a faith without deeds and fruit is enough for salvation. For how can it be a barren, that is, a dead faith, when life—and much more—comes forth from it?

However, despite these words of Leupold showing that he himself disagreed with the idea, he directly mentioned the doctrine being in existence by saying "even today some understand". Thus, we see the fact that Free Grace theology existed during the early 16th century from the writings of Leupold.