Posted on 06/27/2010 3:10:25 AM PDT by GonzoII
Scenario:
You're discussing religion with an Evangelical friend. For 20 minutes you've responded as best you can to her pointed arguments against Catholic doctrines like Mary's perpetual virginity, praying to saints, venerating statues, and purgatory. She's unconvinced. You're frustrated. It doesn't look like there's much of a chance you'll agree on anything.
Then comes the jackpot question. "Look," she says earnestly, "we can disagree about many things, but what's most important is that we know we can be saved by Jesus Christ. Tell me, if you were to die tonight, do you know for sure if you'd go to heaven?"
This is the "all-important" question for Evangelical and Fundamentalist Protestants. Although your friend is completely sincere in asking this question (as she's been coached to do by her pastor and the anti-Catholic radio preacher she listens to in the afternoon), you realize that if you don't answer correctly, you'll walk into a sort of theological ambush.
If you respond that Christians can't, apart from a special revelation from God, have metaphysical or absolute certainty concerning their salvation, a completely biblical and theologically precise answer, your Evangelical friend will gleefully spring a "trap" on you, based on 1 John 5:13: "These things I write to you, that you may know you have eternal life, you who believe in the name of the Son of God."
"See?" she smiles confidently. "The Bible disagrees with you!" She then proceeds to inform you that if you "confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thy heart that God hath raised him up from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For, with the heart, we believe unto justice; but, with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. 10:9-10).
(Excerpt) Read more at envoymagazine.com ...
Right. It is a gift from God. Again, though, if you can lose such a gift, that implies that you can earn keeping such a gift. Your good works garner sufficient favor from the Lord that He continues allowing you to keep that gift.
And that’s not good news, that Christ’s sacrifice is insufficient to cover all our sins.
To be honest, I don’t understand the point of this discussion. Those who belong to the Lord yearn to serve Him anyway, regardless of whether it’s in response to His love or in vain effort to earn His love.
1Jn. 5:13 does indeed promise assurance, but It is one thing to believe that one is saved by faith, and another thing to believe that faith in the promise is salvific even if one lives an unrepentant life of sin. The “these things” of 1Jn. 5:23 refers to what John wrote previous to it, which is a description of what manner of faith denotes a true believer. As he wrote in his gospel, “ My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” (Jn. 10:27,28) This is a promise given to believers, “who are kept by the power of God thru faith unto salvation.” (1Pt. 1:5) Faith is the key.
As for losing salvation, while it is not by works, it is appropriated by an act of God-given faith, and thus recanting that faith, as the Galatians were warned of doing, (Gal. 5:1-4) would signify a forfeiting of what faith appropriated.
Thus a one time faith decision does not provide assurance to those who deny the faith, which believers can do. (1Tim. 5:8) It is therefore that God chastens disobedient saints, so “that we should not be condemned with the world.” (1Cor. 11:32) If He did not, or if we do not respond in repentance, then we would be condemned.
Thus OSAS must both reject the increasing but old heresy that one can be saved and live anyway his flesh pleases, as long as he believes the promise of eternal life to believers, and must also believe that while the elect can fall into a life of faith-denying sin, God will always successfully work repentance. And that while such passages as Gal. 5:1-4 and Heb. 10:18-39 may warn of believers denying the faith and that which is procured, it is a reality that would never occur.
As i seek to honestly look at Scripture, I see the whole of it allowing that believers could do so, but that we must trust God will chasten us back to saving faith, if we so depart, though Heb. 6:1-10 may disallow that in the case of willful departure from the faith.
As for losing salvation, while it is not by works, it is appropriated by an act of God-given faith, and thus recanting that faith, as the Galatians were warned of doing, (Gal. 5:1-4) would signify a forfeiting of what faith appropriated.
Related verse:
Revelation 3:5 (New International Version) 5He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels.
This means to me that ones name must first be put in the book life before it is to be "blotted out".
'And when there had been much disputing Peter rose up....but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they' (Acts15:7,11)
James 2 is speaking of Abraham SHOWING he was saved.
You are to bear fruit as a Christian.(Gal.5)
But that is due to yielding the Holy Spirit who is in you (Rom.6).
We don't live by the OT, we learn from it (Rom.15)
Step Two:
The Bible says salvation depends on several things, not just the simple believe/confess formula your friend holds to. Point out that in 1 John, St. John is speaking to Christians (ie. believers who had accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior (cf. chapter 2:12-14), when he says, "If we say we are without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrongdoing" (1 John 1:8-9). Notice that St. John includes himself in this category by using the word "we." Ask what would happen if she did not confess her sins. What would happen if she confessed with her mouth but wasn't truly repentant? Would God forgive her anyway? If she says yes, she contradicts the biblical passages that say unrepented sin will not be forgiven and nothing sinful or unclean can enter into heaven (cf. Hab. 1:13; Rev. 21:8- 9, 27).
St. John also says, "Let what you heard from the beginning remain in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, then you remain in the Son and in the Father" (1 John 2:24). This if/then construction shows that there is an alternative to "remaining in the Son and the Father." That alternative, naturally, is not remaining in them. In other words, these Christians are being told that it's possible for them to choose not to remain in Him.
St. John makes a distinction between mortal and venial sins in 1 John 5:16-17. He explains that "all wrongdoing is sin," but that some types of sin are "mortal" (Greek: pros thanaton = unto death), while there are other sins that are "venial" (Greek: me pros thanaton = not unto death). The one who is born of God does not commit mortal sin. If he does, he is "cut off" from the body, as St. Paul describes in Romans 11:22-24 and Galatians 5:4; St. Peter also mentions this in 2 Peter 2:20-22. Christ provided the sacramental means by which a person who commits a grave sin and subsequently repents may be restored to fellowship with God and the Church (cf. John 20:21-23).
Note post 107.
Adam and Eve didn't earn their salvation, i.e., friendship with God but they did lose it and tradition does say they got it back. I don't agrre at all with your implication.
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Adam and Eve? Is the cross irrelevant?
Salvation depends on one thing, believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.(Acts 16:30-31)
You can add me to your list too. I couldn’t number the times read, better said I am on my third bible having worn down the first two. This does not include those used for reference etc.
I think asking someone how many times have they read the bible is like asking someone how many meals they’ve had in their lifetime and what were the courses eaten.
“Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
If you scroll to the upper right hand corner, this was posted in religion. You have to readjust your subjects to not include everything...just post to news and activism.
Heb 11:19: Accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.
Good post (#115).
If they depart or recant the faith as you suggest, they were not genuine to begin with. They professed only, but in actually did not “have eternal life.” They tasted, they heard, and knew the message, and experienced the convicting power of the Spirit, yet never truly repented, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That which is “born of God,” the new creature in Christ, cannot and will not ever deny Him.
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