And yet one of two lame belief systems tends to prevail here. Arminianism: you can lose your salvation. Calvinism: good luck finding that you can gain salvation.
THEY ARE BOTH NONSENSE. They both court anxiety as much as you clever “grown ups” want to try to deny it!
Christ said (1) Whosoever will; and (2) None shall snatch them out of My hand.
Now ask God how He did that, and maybe you will eventually get an answer. But quit trying to puzzle it out with your intellect. It does not lead to self contradiction and that should be plenty, if you were willing to BELIEVE.
I’m not Calvinist or Arminianist. Are you sure you aren’t answering another’s post? ;)
I’m with you when it comes to Salvation....once God has got you, he isn’t going to let you go. The verse about losing one’s salvation kind of gets plucked out of the context of surrounding verses and chapters. Plenty of passages in the New Testament about how to restore a fallen Christian back to a state of grace and fellowship. Annanias and Sapphira were taken out quickly before they could cause a detrimental effect on the early church, but I doubt they lost their salvation over their lies. When it ever does happen, it was more likely that such a person never was of the body anyway as other verses in the NT would attest.
Such controversies are why one needs to be a student of the whole Bible and to read verses contextually. It is true that some verses always stand out like Gems...say like John 3:16, but other controversial verses need to be need to have their meanings tempered by their surrounding scriptures in context as well as by what other books or epistles may say about the same subject!
When Christ marveled at the faith of the Sydonian Greek woman and of the Centurian, he marveled! Faith was found growing where it was not expected. Christ came to the Jews first but here were Gentiles showing more faith than his own disciples... Truly we have a master who can ‘gather where naught has been sewn’, though, no doubt, it was the work of the Spirit who sought out those who will worship God “in spirit and in truth”! And when Christ said...”What the Father has placed in my hands, no man may pluck out”...he meant it!
(The verse in context:John 10:22 And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. 23And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. 24Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. 25Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. 26But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. 27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and my Father are one.”