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So, faith is not required for salvation? What a shocker? Oh wait, you mean you just have to have faith one time. After that, anything goes. Faith is no longer important to salvation. Without faith you still get the FULL benefit of salvation, and some punishment to boot.
(Romans 5:1-2)1Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.(NASB)
See, I do understand you.
Once a person has been born into the family of God, entered into union with Christ by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, given the 40 grace gifts at the moment of salvation, he is saved forever, even if he loses his faith. Faith in Christ is simply the means by which the one believing receives the benefit of what Christ did on the cross on his behalf. Having once received the benefit of what Christ has done for him, he has those benefits forever.
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Isn't grace the same as salvation and requires faith?
Grace through faith in Christ is the MEANS of salvation. A one time act of non-meritorious faith is all that God requires to receive the free gift of eternal salvation.
Grace is the policy of the justice of God in blessing mankind based on the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Faith is the means of appropriating what Christ did on the cross. Once appropriated, the believer has it forever.
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Isn't putting faith in the Mosaic Covenent an indication of NOT putting faith in the Messianic Covenet? You can put your faith in everything and cover the bases? Worship Buddha, Allah, Vishnu, and Christ and you are saved. As long as Christ was in there at one time, you do not even have to maintain a relationship with him? An "alienated relationship" is still salvation?
You are referring to the Jewish believers who had believed in Christ but were then enticed back into the animal sacrifices of Judaism. A person can lose his faith after having once truly had faith. That does not mean a loss of eternal salvation.
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Turning away is the same as falling away? Turning or falling from salvation is not indicative of a loss? The scripture says nothing about falling from a relationship, it says falling from GRACE. Since you agree it is a loss, then the question is, is the scripture right that it is a loss of grace, or is your speculative redefinition of grace to "relationship" right?
You persist in relating falling away from what you had once believed with falling away from salvation. The believer does not lose his salvation just because he loses his faith.
Yes the Bible does talk about a loss of temporal relationship. It is called quenching and grieving the Spirit. It is a temporal matter. Not an eternal matter.
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Severed from Christ means you are still in union? Being severed from God is not the condition for judgment of the lake of fire that you have stated in previous posts? Your redefinition of severed to meaning diminished relationship is absurd! If my head were severed from my body, I would just have a diminished relationship with it? I cannot even believe you suggest that! LOL
The Holy Spirit places the church-age believer into an unbreakable union with Christ and seals the believer to the day of redemption. Being severed from Christ simply means that because of a continual failure to grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and because of a continual failure to name your sins to God and therefore constantly remain in a state of carnality, the believer retrogresses from whatever degree of spiritual growth he may of had. As a result he temporally alienates himself from God. Not eternally. He is simply a son who has estranged himself. But he is still a son.
Think of it as two circles. One circle is on top. The other is on the bottom. The top circle represents the believers eternal relationship with God. That is his eternal security. Once he is entered into the top circle through a one time act of non-meritorious faith in Christ he can never get out of that top circle.
The bottom circle represents the believers temporal relationship with God. Inside the bottom circle the believer is spiritual. He is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Outside the bottom circle he is carnal. He is under the control of his old sin nature. The believer can enter and exit the bottom circle. When he sins he is outside the bottom circle. When he names the sin as per 1 John 1:9 he gets back into the bottom circle. If he never names his sins he stays outside the bottom circle. If he stays outside the bottom circle he is perpetually carnal and can lose his faith. But he can never lose his eternal salvation which belongs to the top circle.
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You have explained your POV but you cannot explain away the explicit message of the scriptures. Your interpretations are no where to be found in the text. There is no genuine lexical or scriptual support for your interpretations of these verses. Your interpretation of other verses generate your bias for your interpretation of these verses, but they actually cannot support your speculation and redefinition of specific words or phrases in these verses.
I am not expressing a point of view. I am expressing Biblical truth. And what I have said here is well supported by the Scriptures.
Your attitude is the same as those who deny that the Bible says that Jesus Christ is God, when in fact the Bible couldn't be more clear that Jesus Christ IS God. They just won't see it.
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The confusion is started when you digress into an unrelated discussion of faith verses works. Galatians 5:4 and Hebrews 6:1-8 have nothing to do with works, it is all about FAITH. Show me anywhere in those scriptures where "works" is identified as the subject, just quote the verse!
The subject is about which covenant they were putting their FAITH in; the Mosaic Covenant or the Messianic Covenant.
'Turning to the law" is synonomous with putting FAITH in the Mosaic Covenent (The Law of Moses) All of the surrounding context supports this. Putting faith in tenets of the Mosaic Covenent is not putting faith is "works". That is an absurd charaterization to pervert the meaning of the scripture and conscript it for the faith vs. works debate.
The issue is that the Jewish believers were going back to the animal sacrifices of Judaism and therefore crucifying to themselves again Jesus Christ (Heb 6:4-8). They were depending on the works of the law rather than on what Jesus had done. In Gal 5 Paul was warning against going back into the works of the law. Some were attempting to be justified by law. That is works.
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This is the crux of the matter.
By your definition there are devout Muslims who are saved by the Messianic Covenant. At one time they genuinely put their faith is Christ and were saved, but later changed their faith. Although they are self proclaimed enemies of Christ and despise Christians, they cannot reject their salvation in Christ, they will always be saved. Boy, will they be surprised!
Once a person has put his trust in Christ he is saved forever, no matter what he comes to believe afterwards.
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A very interesting belief Mike555. You are absolutely correct when you say I do not understand your POV.
If you take the view that they never had genuine faith you put yourself in an untenable position. It is circle logic and hubris to think you can make that judgment. You cannot know peoples hearts or judge their faith. It is also ridiculous to distort their change in FAITH to be some kind of “works” issue and evoke the faith vs. works discussion in order that their FAITH is not the point.
You are now talking about my reference to those who hear the gospel but instead of trusting entirely in Christ, they also feel that they must contribute to their salvation by doing meritorious works. Those who add anything to faith alone in Christ alone are not saved. If they come to understand the issue and as a result do place their faith in Christ alone then they will be saved. Otherwise they will remaing lost forever.
I suggest that you go to post #78 and read what I said about the believer being permanently Positionally sanctified.
Fortunately our salvation is not dependent on whether or not you think you can lose it.
The obvious problem with thinking you can lose your salvation that you end up trusting your own actions aka works in maintaining ans retaining your salvation. The other obvious problem is the fact that you can never have assurance of your salvation and this results in loss of peace.
I will stick to the promises of Jesus. Once He makes us a new person, He will not turn around and make us back in to the old person again. It would not make any sense at all. Also, would Romans 8:30 make sense if you could lost your salvation? "And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified". .
John 10:27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.
Heb 13:5 Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you
Rom 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
Did these people lose their salvation? “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
No, because it says "I never knew you". If they had been saved and then lost their salvation, Jesus would have known them at some point, but he said He never knew them. They were never saved.
How about these people? Did they lose their salvation? "They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, in order that it might be shown that they all are not of us,"
No, because it says they were with them, but never of them (saved).
Actually Finn, the problem is with thinking that a person can't because all you're effectively doing is UR-ing but just from a different angle.
So to be consistant then, you're going to say these people never had the covenant of the LORD
Deuteronomy 29:25
“It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD,..."
For consistancy reasons ... then Jeshurun in verses Deuteronomy 1-14 never had fathers who had and then later himself that had
A faithful God who does no wrong,
upright and just is he.
he set up boundaries for the peoples
according to the number of the sons of Israel
He shielded him and cared for him
he guarded him as the apple of his eye
The LORD alone led him;
no foreign god was with him
Deuteronomy 32:15
Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior.
Here are some abandon examples ... could you please explain how they abandon these if they never had it to begin with
Judges 4:15
At Barak’s advance, the LORD routed Sisera and all his chariots and army by the sword, and Sisera abandoned his chariot and fled on foot
1 Samuel 30:13
David asked him, “To whom do you belong, and where do you come from?” He said, “I am an Egyptian, the slave of an Amalekite. My master abandoned me when I became ill three days ago.
2 Samuel 5:21
The Philistines abandoned their idols there, and David and his men carried them off.
2 Chronicles 11:14
The Levites even abandoned their pasturelands and property,
2 Chronicles 24:18
They abandoned the temple of the LORD, the God of their fathers
Hopefully you get the point Finn. For people to abandon something i.e "faith" one has had to have it to begin with.
Romans 1:27
In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women
1 Timothy 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
Jesus never said that witnessing was the lamp.... that is the "all" argument of UR in a different form. The "Lamp" is the Word .. the Word creates faith
Jesus warns the he will take the lampstand away because of unrepentant sin, just like he instructed Matthew 18:15-20
God isn't going back on his word ... OSAS theology claims that He will.
Revelation 2:5 "If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."
1 Timothy 4:1
The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith ......
Jesus never implies "once in the vine always in the vine"
John 15:4
Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
John 15:5
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;
Jesus own words refute OSAS, nor does Jesus never say that one who doesn't remain faithful never had faith to begin with.
That is just the pure attempt to have God's word fit the human conclusion rather than letting the word speak for itself.
John 15:6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
2 Timothy 2:12
if we endure, we will also reign with him.
If we disown him, he will also disown us;
Jesus does not say ... If anyone does not remain in me, he is saved anyway or they didn't have faith to begin with so.....
God is faithful to his word otherwise he is not faithful to himself. God does not save those who reject him ... either outright at the beginning or those who do so later on.
John 15:6
2 Timothy 2:12
Revelation 2:5
2 Peter 2:20-21
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (coming to faith)and are again entangled in it and overcome,
they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
Twin, the seven lampstands are the seven churches which are mentioned in Revelations 2 and 3. See Rev 1:20. The church at Ephesus' light was indeed their witness to Ephesus. The passage is saying that if the church did not repent that that church would cease to be a witness. It does not mean that the believers in that church would lose their salvation. The church at Ephesus continued to exist, but acccording to the Bible Knowledge Commentary, the church and the city declined after the 5th century.
2 Tim 2:11-13 is talking about eternal rewards.
2 Tim 2:11 'For if we died with Hm, we shall also live with Him. (The believer has died with Christ and therefore will live with Him). Then in verse 12 rewards come into the picture.
2 Tim 2:12 'If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; (not all believers are going to reign in the kingdom). If we deny Him, He also will deny us (eternal rewards). I am aware that some think that verse 12 is referring to those who did not truly believe in Christ but only professed to.
2 Tim 2:13 'If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Verse 13 actually affirms the eternal security of the believer. Christ remains faithful even if the believer becomes faithless.
John 15:1-6 also does not imply that a believer can lose his salvation. The issue in this passage is the believers experiential relationship with God. That is, the believer who advances in his spiritual life will produce fruit and will be rewarded for it. The believer who does neglects his spiritual life and lives in persistant carnality will have no spiritual production - fruit, and will come under temporal discipline; and loss of eternal reward (1 Cor 3:12-15), but cannot lose his salvation. The disobedient believer can come under intense divine discipline in time. That includes the sin unto death in which the disobedient believer is taken out of this life under maximum divine discipline and taken home to heaven in disgrace.
The following site discusses John 15:1-11. The question is, will you bother to take a look and attempt to understand it.
Twin, the seven lampstands are the seven churches which are mentioned in Revelations 2 and 3. See Rev 1:20. The church at Ephesus' light was indeed their witness to Ephesus. The passage is saying that if the church did not repent that that church would cease to be a witness. It does not mean that the believers in that church would lose their salvation. The church at Ephesus continued to exist, but acccording to the Bible Knowledge Commentary, the church and the city declined after the 5th century.
2 Tim 2:11-13 is talking about eternal rewards.
2 Tim 2:11 'For if we died with Hm, we shall also live with Him. (The believer has died with Christ and therefore will live with Him). Then in verse 12 rewards come into the picture.
2 Tim 2:12 'If we endure, we shall also reign with Him; (not all believers are going to reign in the kingdom). If we deny Him, He also will deny us (eternal rewards). I am aware that some think that verse 12 is referring to those who did not truly believe in Christ but only professed to.
2 Tim 2:13 'If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. Verse 13 actually affirms the eternal security of the believer. Christ remains faithful even if the believer becomes faithless.
John 15:1-6 also does not imply that a believer can lose his salvation. The issue in this passage is the believers experiential relationship with God. That is, the believer who advances in his spiritual life will produce fruit and will be rewarded for it. The believer who does neglects his spiritual life and lives in persistant carnality will have no spiritual production - fruit, and will come under temporal discipline; and loss of eternal reward (1 Cor 3:12-15), but cannot lose his salvation. The disobedient believer can come under intense divine discipline in time. That includes the sin unto death in which the disobedient believer is taken out of this life under maximum divine discipline and taken home to heaven in disgrace.
The following site discusses John 15:1-11. The question is, will you bother to take a look and attempt to understand it.
Actually Finn, the problem is with thinking that a person can't because all you're effectively doing is UR-ing but just from a different angle.
So to be consistant then, you're going to say these people never had the covenant of the LORD
No, UR promises salvation to everyone whether they want it or not, so there is no one left out behind the door, and there is no one who leaves. Losing or not losing existing faith has nothing to do with UR.
It seems people do not see the difference between loss of salvation and an interruption in fellowship with God. Most, if not all, believers go through times when sin gets between them and God, and the Spirit is grieved. When this happens, the connection is interrupted, but it never means they have lost their salvation. God never leaves us, even if we temporarily turn our backs to Him.
It remains me of a poem, which most here have probably heard before:
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord
“You promised me Lord that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me.
The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you
Mary Stevenson, 1936
Yes, I have heard that poem before. It's nice.
Two people on this thread have now equated the eternal security of the believer with Universalism. How people can make such a comparison is beyond me. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Why does it sound like salvation is the completion rather than the beginning when you speak about it?
Understand that the salvation of the soul takes place at the moment of faith alone in Christ alone. The salvation of the body occurs at the resurrection of the body which is still future.
In between, there is the spiritual life of the believer on earth. It is a matter of Positional, Experiential, and Ultimate Sanctification. Something that I have talked about repeatedly on this forum. The terms can be easily researched.
Two people on this thread have now equated the eternal security of the believer with Universalism. How people can make such a comparison is beyond me. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
Association fallacy An old political trick where the opponent associates your beliefs with something which everyone knows to be false. It is supposed to make your belief look false because it is associated to another false belief.
I am not expressing a point of view. I am expressing Biblical truth. And what I have said here is well supported by the Scriptures.
Your attitude is the same as those who deny that the Bible says that Jesus Christ is God, when in fact the Bible couldn't be more clear that Jesus Christ IS God. They just won't see it.
It is not Biblical truth Mike555, and it is only supported by your theology, a POV. Whether you see it or not.
We all see that you ignore the Bible and the specific message and replace it with your interpretations and philosophies of men. For some that is acceptable and they think it sounds intellectual and profound (like you think of yourself). For most of us we know those theological musings for what they are and would rather rely than the inspired word of God.
When the words of the scriptures conflict with what you want them to say, in order to agree with your theology, you just insert elaborate rationalization for why they mean something completely different from the explicit message. You do this so often you are desensitized to the absurdity of that behavior. None of the words you use or concepts you present are even in the scripture you are talking about. You boldly redefine words, proclaim attributes and expound upon concepts that are only in your musings, not in the Koine Greek of the scripture.
Severed just means diminished relationship: I will remember that farce for a long time! You could write a book of theology and that assertion would never make sense. LOL The inspired writer was articulate and clear, directed by the holy spirit to write "you are severed from Christ" (κατηργήθητε ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ) and to think you suggest it just means "you hit a rough spot in your relationship with Christ"...LOL Do you expect us to think that was the most articulate Koine Greek that Paul and the holy spirit could come up to express ""you hit a rough spot in your relationship with Christ"? Even those that accept your theology cannot believe they could find a definition for severed in a Koine Greek lexicon to support your assertion. They are just gullible enough to completely dismiss the meaning of the written words in the Bible and believe that grandiose sounding theology you present.
Well it is true there are millions and millions of people that put their faith in Christ, but they will never accept your theology. My, or their, "attitude" is unimportant because we do put our faith in Jesus, not your theology. Your methods of contorting the meaning of the scriptures to fit your doctrine will always be detestable to them. You will never be believed, but their salvation is secured.
Another good thing is that all those JWs out there can know that even though you do not like their "attitude", the theology that you promote ensures they are all saved too. Whether they are converts or not, they all put their faith in Jesus and are saved, no matter what other people might say.
Thank you for the dialog instead of posted links. You are a funny man! Still LOL!
Association fallacy An old political trick where the opponent associates your beliefs with something which everyone knows to be false. It is supposed to make your belief look false because it is associated to another false belief.
Yeah, like losing your salvation in the blink of and eye
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An old political trick where the opponent associates your beliefs with something which everyone knows to be false. It is supposed to make your belief look false because it is associated to another false belief.
