Common Sense Answers on the Eternal Security Doctrine:
Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS), commonly taught in the majority of Christian churches... will be held up to the light of
I Thes. 5:21 (KJV) "Prove all things" in the following:
All verses quoted are KJV, but for an instant reference in the
English Standard Version, place the cursor on chapter/verse.
Eph.1:13 ..States we are sealed at the time of salvation. .And,
I might add, our name would be entered into the Book of Life
at this same time.
Eph.4:30 Further adds we are "sealed unto the Day of Redemp-
tion." .So, on the day of redemption, since we are sealed our
name will be found in the Book of Life. And, if we are sealed
unconditionally, .this means that God cannot take our name
out of the Book of Life.This looks like a strong case for OSAS?
… Let's compare this to the whole counsel of God:
I think it would be fair to say, at this point, that to be sealed
unto the day of redemption, is equal to having our name
entered into the Book of Life, since both of these events take
place at the time of our salvation.
So, in light of all of the above, God must have been mistaken
when He told Moses in Exodus 32:33 "...Whosoever sins against
Me, him will I blot out of My Book."
And in Revelation 3:5 KJV, Jesus implies that He can blot our
name out of the Book of Life. And at the end of the last chapter
in this book, Rev.22:19 KJV (paraphrased) "...if any man shall
change the words of this book, God shall take his name out
of the Book of Life.
In view of the above, common sense should tell us that to be seal-
ed unto the day of redemption is "conditional" because He can
take us out of the book of life, at which point we would lose our
salvation. Clearly our name has to be put into the book (saved)
in order to be taken out of it!!!
Before continuing I will state that in the process of keeping this
post as brief as possible one might come to the conclusion that if
they backslid they could never return, no! But, one needs to get
out of this backslidden state by repenting, you do not want to die
in this state because OSAS is false. John Calvin (1509-1564),
was the first to push this theory, now known as "Calvinism." I
believe all of the following verses are directed to people who
have passed from backsliding into apostasy:
I want to be very clear; backsliding is not apostasy, apostasy is
when one makes a hardened, persistent, willful practice of sin and
a blatant rejection of the Godhead, the *Holy Spirit in particular:
"... blasphemy against the *Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven
unto men... neither in this world, or in the world to come"
(Matt.12:31). See also: Mark 3:29, and Luke 12:10.
Now to continue with more of God's counsel on this subject:
Eze.18:26_"When a righteous [saved] man turneth away from his
righteousness, and committeth iniquity [sins], and dieth in them
[does not repent before he dies], for the sins he has done he shall
die [spiritual death]."
II Peter 2:20_"...if after they have escaped the sins of the world
through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are again
entangled therein [backslidden], and overcome [apostatized], the
latter end is worse with them than the beginning."
I believe the following verses can also be viewed in the same light
(i.e., state of apostasy), even though these don't differentiate:
II Peter 2:21_"For it had been better for them not to have known
the way of righteousness, than to know it... and turn away..."
Heb.6:4,6_"For it is impossible for those who were once enlight-
ened… and made partakers of the Holy Spirit..." "If they shall
fall away, to renew them again unto repentance..."
Heb.10:26_"For if we sin wilfully after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice
for sins."
If one is to cling to the once saved - always saved theory
he must make these texts say something other than what
they clearly say, or he must simply reject or ignore them.
Is it logical that a once saved person can backslide, live
like hell, die without repenting, and still go to heaven?
...While an unsaved person who may even be a very
honest and upright person... die and go to hell? (what-
ever or wherever this is?)
Please go to the very brief *link listed below, where we present
more Scriptural base for our belief in the possibility of apostasy:
* SALVATION IS CONDITIONAL (The "IF" Passages).
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7 comments:
SALVATION IS AN ETERNAL STATE OF BEING HOLY AND PERFECT. FOR WITHOUT THIS ESSSENCE OF BEING, WE CANNOT BE JOINED TO THE FATHER AND SON, FOR THEIR UNION IS IN THE POWER OF LIFE ETERNAL.THIS POWER AND ESSENCE OF BEING, IS THEMSELVES. FOR NO SUCH GLORY CAN BE GIVEN UNLESS GIFTED TO US BY THEM. WE ARE JOINED TO THEIR UNION BY THE DEATH OF CHRIST AND OUR FAITH IN THIS SACRIFICE.
Here is my story: I grew up fundamentalist Baptist. I repented of all my sins and accepted Jesus Christ into my heart to be my Lord and Savior at age nine…and again in my early teens…just to be sure. In my early 20’s my family moved to another state where we attended a non-denominational, evangelical mega-church (which taught Baptist doctrine) for several years. In my mid to late 20’s I stopped going to church because I didn’t “feel” God inside me and he didn’t seem to listen when I prayed.
I remained unchurched until I was married in my forties. I started attending liberal churches. When we had children, I started looking again at more conservative/fundamentalist churches, something closer to what I had believed as a child and teenager. We joined a conservative, orthodox Lutheran church. I became very involved in the church. I was happy and content in my orthodox Christian belief system. I read the Bible and prayed regularly.
One day I was surfing the internet and came across an atheist’s website. He was a former fundamentalist Baptist/evangelical pastor! I was shocked! I started to engage him in conversation, and also tried to bring him back to the Faith, to belief in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
However, this man pointed out to me some very big assumptions in my Christian belief system which I had never thought of, such as:
1. Just because there is evidence for a Creator does not mean that the Creator is the Christian God, Yahweh.
2. Our current Bibles contain thousands of scribe alterations, most of them inconsequential, but a couple of them are shocking. Why did God allow scribes copying the original Scriptures to change, delete, add, or alter his inerrant, Holy, Word?
3. How do we know that the books of the New Testament are the Word of God? Is there a verse that tells us? Did Jesus give us a list? Did Paul?
4. Do we really have any verifiable eyewitness testimony for the Resurrection or is it all hearsay and legend?
5. Modern archaeology proves that the Captivity in Egypt, the Exodus, the forty years in the Sinai, the Conquest of Canaan, and the great kingdoms of David and Solomon are only ancient Hebrew fables.
At first I fought him tooth and nail. I fought him for four months. At the very end I had to admit that there are no verifiable eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus in the Bible or anywhere else. All we have are four anonymous first century texts full of discrepancies and contradictions. The only thing I had left to attach my faith to was the testimony of the Apostle Paul: why would a devout Jewish rabbi convert to a religion he so hated unless he really saw a resurrected dead man on the Damascus Road?
But after studying the five Bible passages that discuss Paul’s conversion, I had to admit that Paul never says he saw a resurrected body. All Paul says is that he saw a light…and that this event occurred in a “heavenly vision”. Visions are not reality...not in the 21st century nor in the 1st.
And as for the improbability that a Jewish rabbi would convert to a hated religion, there is a Muslim cleric in Israel today who not too many years ago was an ardent Zionist Jewish settler and rabbi, intent on ridding the Muslims from Jewish land.
Strange conversions occur. They do not prove that the new religion is true and inerrant.
I was broken-hearted, but I saw my Christian Faith was nothing more than an ancient superstition that had been modified in the first century by Jesus, a good man, but a dead man. There is zero evidence that this first century Jew is alive and the Ruler of the Universe.
Gary you are nut's and sadly right on your way to hell. You stopped having faith and are now dammed! because you believed a man over God and what He chose to speak to your heart. i have to say you are a complete fool.
The only ones who say there is no God and or that Jesus the only way to God does not exist is doomed and dammed to hell.
Gary, I'm going to deal with point 5 first
"Modern archaeology proves that the Captivity in Egypt, the Exodus, the forty years in the Sinai, the Conquest of Canaan, and the great kingdoms of David and Solomon are only ancient Hebrew fables."
Actually, this is wrong. There are (and even in the time the atheist learned his crap was known)
strong indications of a conquest in Canaan, by people not that different culturally and linguistically from
the Canaanites. There have been found
inscriptions on broken pieces that point to "the house of David"
mention YHWH and the liberation of all
Babylonian captives and their "gods" (which incl. Jews and YHWH's things) that Cyrus decreed is the Cyrus Cylinder, and the more narrowly specific statement by him the Bible quotes is probably a case of specific liberation grants to each people as distinct from and supporting the words of the main liberation decree of the Cyrus Cylinder.
Lots of archaeology shows that there was apostasy and syncretism going on in Israelite and Judahite land just like the Kings and Chronicles and Prophets detail and complain of.
Two possible sites have been found for Mt. Sinai and the Israelite encampments coming out of Egypt, and one is in the northern edge of Arabia. Arabs called it Jebel Musa or Mt. of Moses, and it has debris around it indicative of such a camping. Of the two, only it has a black scorched top, but no indication in the photographs of it being a volcano.
As for the rest, St. Irenaeus writing AD 180 was student of Polycarp student of the Apostle John himself. This overlap by aged men is a strong connection back to origins and Irenaeus verifies the Gospels and Epistles. Church histories were compiled originals lost but the results published by Eusebius, Sozomen and others.
So yes you got eyewitness account of the REsurrection and not the Apostles only but over 500 altogether says Paul.
So you need to rethink everything.
In addition, Numbers and Genesis point to a time of the Messiah being due when a non Judahite is on the throne of Judah, that would be Herod. There are other prophecies which are fulfilled in Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, Daniel also points to this timeframe.
Conficting prophecies of sacrifice and being cut off (killed) and of ruling forever are resolved by The REsurrection and the promised Second Coming from the sky.
DO NOT GO BY FEELINGS, WHETHER YOU FEEL GOD IN YOU OR NOT.
Personally, I moved from an agnostic position, with knowledge of God and Jesus, to a Christian position because I called on God for help, meaning the God of Abraham the God who is the God of the Bible and father of Jesus Christ, when I was in real serious trouble and it went away before it could fully develop. Some years later I got baptized.
Some 30 years almost after that, I became Eastern Orthodox. A lot of study and some experience.
DO NOT BASE YOUR BELIEF IN GOD ON WHETHER YOUR PRAYERS GET ANSWERED. Maybe He is testing you. Maybe what you want is not His will. Maybe you have some kind of unrecognized or clung to and unrepented sin.
Study the Bible, not bits and pieces but entire books of it at a time, read a Gospel at one sitting, Epistles ditto, psalms and proverbs and use Strong's Concordance to check words and stuff, use KJV or NKJV.
It will make sense, especially if you ask God to make it make sense. Ask for wisdom like James says.
Dedication to Jesus as Lord and willingness to stay true to Him no matter the cost to yourself OR ANYONE ELSE is key.
No eyewitness accounts in Scripture?
Acts 10:38-40 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)
38 How God anointed and consecrated Jesus of Nazareth with the [Holy] Spirit and with strength and ability and power; how He went about doing good and, in particular, curing all who were harassed and oppressed by [the power of] the devil, for God was with Him.
39 And we are [eye and ear] witnesses of everything thhat He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And [yet] they put Him out of the way (murdered Him) by hanging Him on a tree;
40 But God raised Him to life on the third day and caused Him to be manifest (to be plainly seen),
Paul testified to that when Paul said some 500 had seen Jesus after He rose from death, some of whom Paul said were still alive at that time.
How about Thomas? He wouldn't believe until he saw & touched the Lord for himself. When Thomas DID see the resurrected Messiah, Thomas fell on his knees & proclaimed Jesus to be his Lord AND his God.
There are more NT verses, but this should suffice. One more, mine. I didn't see Jesus the way the disciples did, bodily. But I DID 'see' Him when I got saved in '69. HE put a strong witness IN my being that Nov. evening. HE made me strongly aware that indeed, He does live. He has given me so many proofs since then...Jesus is so awesome it is beyond words...
Regarding Once Saved:
Hebrews 6:4-7Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)-From Bible Gateway
4 For it is impossible [to restore and bring again to repentance] those who have been once for all enlightened, who have consciously tasted the heavenly gift and have become sharers of the Holy Spirit,
5 And have felt how good the Word of God is and the mighty powers of the age and world to come,
6 If they then deviate from the faith and turn away from their allegiance—[it is impossible] to bring them back to repentance, for (because, while, as long as) they nail upon the cross the Son of God afresh [as far as they are concerned] and are holding [Him] up to contempt and shame and public disgrace.
Turning from one's allegiance to Christ is the key. That means you become lord of your life or give it up to satan, taking the arch enemy of your soul as your lord.
In Jesus,
SamFox
THERE is no such thing as two parts to the second coming. Christ coming to earth is the second coming, Christ coming for members of the Church, which is His Body in the air is the Secret coming. Behold I tell you a mystery...... If you would understand the difference between the "Kingdom church and the Mystery Church the Body of Christ, you would understand the two comings. The seal of believers in the Body church is not an outward mark, but a living person of the Trinity, namely the Holy Spirit Himself.
Ummm no Dale there is no separation in the body of Christ. We are all one in Christ Jesus there is no difference between Jews and Gentiles no difference in men and women, no slave no free we are all one in Christ Jesus Galatians 3:28!!
There are no two comings of the Lord, and nowhere in the word of God do we find that written.As a matter of fact, Jesus says in Revelation 16:15 Behold I come as a thief for the last time, showing he has not come as a thief before that and His coming like a thief is not in secret it will be loud and proud and in your face.
There will be no doubts that this is indeed the Lord.
Don't let men lead you astray, you read the word for yourself with the Father and ask Him for the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and He will give it to you. He did for me on the subject you are trying to prove out here, but you could never do that. Don't be caught unawares making yourself susceptible to the lies of the wonders of satan himself in the form of a man.
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