Replies

Bob,
When I read:

19 My brethren,
if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back,
20 let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

I'm not so sure thst we can't stray from the Truth we have already been given- unto our spiritual death.
Now we can be brought back- repentance- and maybe even fall away again-

But if this can happen, maybe the wages of sin are really death...

the key to understanding that is that we can not save people’s souls- look at the verse- it says “whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul”. We don’t save people- we have no power to save their souls

Another key to understanding the Eternal security of Salvation is that When a person is saved- they are given “Eternal Life”- Would be kind of cruel to suggest that the word “Eternal” means “only as long as” someone toes the line- When you are saved- you pass from death unto life- unto eternal life

Also The word for Soul in this verse (psuche) is “Life”- and doesn’t mean spirit or soul in the sense of the eternal soul- Wherever it is used it mean the life of a body which is subject to death-

There are a couple of passages in the bible that seem to indicate a saved person can “die and wind up in hell after losing their salvation”- but those verses too are not talking about Soul death, but rather psuche death of the person

No man can pluck a Christian out of the hands of the Savior- no man- that includes ourselves- God gave Christ all his children, and He assures us in His word that His Son will never lose even one of them because He is the good shepherd who looks after His sheep and keeps them safe until they arrive in the Mansions set aside for them in eternity-

This is how I’ve been taught on the issue of eternal life-

Here's a good site on eternal assurance

https://www.gracecoach.org/post/can-a-christian-lose-their-salvation

in your verse- it is talking about a person living in sin, and endangering their lives by their actions- God will allow folks to do what they wish- and He warns us over and over that if we continue in sins, we may very well end out lives prematurely- that passage you mentioned again uses the word for life, not soul- it was interpreted as soul, but the word used means life-

Another important point about why that verse means life and not soul- Souls do not die- we can lose our lives, but never our souls- they live in in one place or the other-

Here is another link talking about this very thing

http://oncesaved.org/james-520-explained-how-our-eternal-salvation-can-never-be-lost