[[But you have to agree the principles of faith you hold onto did not exist for the first 1500 years of Christianity]]
That isn’t true at all. Salvation has zlways been faith in the redeemer/Christ. Before the new testament, Christ was simply known as the redeemer, prophesied of, yet to come, but alive in heaven. The old testament folks who were truly saved were actuslly Christians, they just didn’t have a name for it yet. There were .a great many saved jews when Jesus was crucified. They were saved even before he went to the cross and died.
I see you are touching on more and more known skeptical verses whi h seem to indicate a loss of salvation. Again, careful reading, in context, considering whom the passage is about in many cases, tells us thst those verses do not co traditional once saved always saved. I gave you a good link onmthe issue of the natural,branches. Those jews were jews that had adopted other gods and were not saved. The passage and taking into account who the passage was written to makes that clear that this was specifically about jews who were not saved, and was not about gentile Christians. The link I gave explains in detail
[[agree... absolutely. Christ never knew THEM... but they believed THEY KNEW CHRIST... and lived a life “believing” they knew him...]]
This isn’t true either. Unsaved peop,e who pretend to be saved know in their hearts they are unsaved. God isn’t going to trick anyone, and he always let’s them know through his spirit who convicts them. They can learn to ignore the conviction of the holy spirit, but they know full well they aren’t saved. Despite their claims,to,the contrary. God has written the universal moral code o. Everyone’s heart, and everyonemgoung to hell does so knowing that thye are at odds with the creator.
What makes themma cino is the fsct thatnthey never ac epted Christ, butmthey claim to have. There are many many religions that speak,a good game, but who do not preach salvation through Christ alone- these are false Christians, cinos.
You go on to state that they perform certain Christian rituals, but none of those save. Only faith in Christ saves. Religious but unsaved people go through all,manner of rituals and baptisms and whatnot, but they have never accepted christ as savior. We can’t earn our way to heaven by following religious rituals and rites etc.
Gettingmback,to,Getting back,, very important point of whether we can lose salvation or not, it can’t be so because the moment we state that we must maintain our salvation, we have room to brag that we save ourselves by our good deeds and by abstaining from sin, whi h is entirely impossible this side of heaven.
When we claim we can lose salvation and re-earn it, it is no longer “Christ alone” but now becomes “Christ plus my pious living” that earns salvation
To,be saved means to repent. To repent simply means to “have a change of mind”. It doesn’t mean turning your back,on sins because that is impossible- no man can do so, and an unsaved person has no desire whatsoever to even try because their sin nature is at enmity with God. They do not have the holy spirit yet. So,it,is impossible for them to will themselves into a,”good enough state” of sinlessness so that Christ is obliged to accept,them into,the family.
How much sin does one need to remove from their lives in order to be saved? ALL sin. Even the little things and unseen things, and things we don’t even know we are doing, because to be saved is to be perfectly sinless before God. The only way to achieve that is to,have a change of mind about HOW one must be saved. No longer shoukd,should, person think,that anything they do saves them. Only Christ can save. Our works are as filthy rags and totally unacceptable to God.
When we finally come to,the point where we say to God “ok lord, I’m done trying to,save myself, and I throw myself at your feet a miserable sinner incapable of working for,my salvation, therefore i call onmthe name of Christ alone to,save me” will such a person be saved because they finally repented.
Passages that seem to,indicate saved,people losing salvation almost a.ways are talking about unsaved people pretending they are saved, and who are trying to earn their way to salvation. Those are the people,Christ will,say “depart from me I never knew you” to. Those passages are fair earning to,such people to get their acts together and and stop,trying to be pious “religious folks” who benefit fro the church, but who never accept Christ. They get very close to salvation, know all the words, and might even sound saved, but if you talk to,them long enough you will,find they never repented, thstmtheynare just along for the ride.
Thrse posts are getting too long- too many trails to explore- all,I can real,y say at this point is that once saved a,ways saved has to,be true because the moment we say that we must maintain our salvation, we take salvation completely out-of Christ’s hands and plunk it squarely on ourselves. Paul and the apostles and Christ,warned agaisn this, stating clearly that salvation is not earned lest any man should boast
I suppose someone could say that they aren’t boasting when they say they are maintaining their own salvation, butmthey are boasting because God has c,early stated all through his word,even In the old testament, that salvation comes by faith alone, not works lest any man should beast. Saying that we must maintain our own salvation is boasting really.
There is a term I can’t quite recall but i think is something,oiek,the word “dispensia” or soemthing like,that. It meansmthst when a basic bliblical truthmis established, any passages that seem to contradict it must mean something else, because the truth is so,profound that it stands on its own and can’t be shaken because God can not lie. When God said that noonemthat he gives christ will be lost, that is a major biblical truth. And when he says that we are sealed forever by the holy spirit, he means it. Anythingmthat contradicts this must either be read wrong, misinterpreted, or plain wrong. Since God’s word is infallible, we know,that it can’t be wrong, so it must be misinterpreted if it seems to,contradict a major biblical,truth.
God has alwaysmmaintained that salvation is solely through the redeemer. He says so many times. If it is solely through the redeemer, then it can’t be through anything that we do to “keep” it.
Judas was never saved- ever. There are many sermons on this issue, so,no, he wasn’t saved then lost.
[[BUT.IT.DOES.NOT. Say we cannot remove ourselves from God’s hands... ONLY that no one can do that TO US.... ]]
It,is,a given thst even we can’t remove ourselves from salvation because we are sealed- no conditions for that sealing. Salvation is a gift, not earned. Again, we can’t maintain our salvation because doing so is earning, and is in direct opposition to his word that tells us we are filthy rags incapable of good deeds. You keep,ignoring this very important point, and the reasons it is so important is because it proves that we can never be good enough to save oj4selves or to get to a point where christ then says “ok, good eneough, I’m now obliged to save you again.
We are going round and round in circles here I’m afraid. There is no escaping 2 very important points- 1 we can never be good,enough that christ will then be obliged to save us again, because as Paul makes abundantly clear, our best deeds are as dirty grimy filthy foul smellingmrags,smelling rags, God. 2 being saved is strictly an act performed by christ, not us, but if we say we must maintain our salvation, the we take it out of his hands and now our salvationmrelies on our “good deeds”, hoping I guess to “do,enough good deeds that it outweighs the bad ones so that God will be obliged to save us again. 3we must repent, ie have a change of mind about HOW we are saved in order to be saved. When we come to,realize that nothing we do can make us perfectly sinless so thst we can be in the presence of God, thenmwe,fall at Christ’s feet and empty ourselves of all effort and ask him for mercy and grace because we don’t deserve it, can’t earn it, and don’t even want it apart from HIS drawing us to Him. We bow in humble realization thst nothing we do can ever be clean enough, sinless enough, rest enough to cover our sins, and therefore we fall upon the mercy of the only sinless perfect sacrifice to ever have lived, and we thank,God for loving us enough to,draw us to him and that realization.
[[Chastisement? Why?]]
Because that is what God does to protect us. He corrects bad behavior for our own good. We can ,intentionally to him, accept,th punishment, or reject it and walk off,in a huff, but we are stil. Saved. The point was that severely carnal Christian churches were called brothers and sisters, not “former brothers and sisters”- they didn’t lose their salvation, and the sins they were including in were “whoppers” by today’s standards.
We’ve gone over the above key points several times now. My answers remain the same- we can’t maintain because they woild mean we are responsible for our salvation, not christ, because without our “trying to,be good enough” we woild,not be saved if we were able to lose salvation. Also we could then brag if we were honest with ourselves and admitted that what was really going on was we save ourselves by our efforts if we could,lose salvation. There’s just no getting around that. We can be fake and say with false humility that “oh no, it’s not me that saves, but Christ alone” but the very belief that we must maintain our own salvation shows,that we don’t really,beleive it is only,christ, but also,our efforts, which Paul told us we,can not do,because we,c an never be good enough to maintain ourmsalvation.