Our perspective on earth is temporal: at any khronos moment in time, we may or may not have obtained salvation, we may or may not have dis-obtained salvation. It may or may not be that salvation is not dis-obtainable in a temporal sense.
But our salvation depends on God's grace through Christ's death and resurrection, and God's perspective is not temporal but eternal. "Eternal" doesn't mean "it goes on forever without stopping," but rather that all experience occurs in a kairos at-the-moment-which-is-all-moments manner that cannot be explained in a temporal sense.
Christ, for example, has been kairos slain from the foundation of the world, once for all time, but He was slain during a khronos point in time on the cross, 2000 years ago in temporal measure.
So, assuming that I am saved, which I do assume based on Christ's merit, and assuming that I will not lose my salvation, which I do assume based on the grace of God acting in my life, then I cannot lose my salvation, because my salvation has existed since the foundation of the world, since the source of my salvation (the death and resurrection of Christ) has occurred since the foundation of the world. However, it can look, in a temporal sense, like a person could lose his/her salvation, but such a person was never saved in an eternal sense, because the whole of the person's experience would be already known in eternity.
This is where the paradox of predestination vs. free will is not "solved," because there is no solving it while we are stuck in our temporal existence, but recognized to have a solution that will be understood in eternity, when we will be in a position to understand existence both in temporal and eternal terms.
And people say Catholics split hairs...
Reread the article. He deals with this by pointing out the parable of the debtor. Was he forgiven by his master? Whether in time, for all time, or at one time... he was. Should he then have forgiven others? Yes. Did he fail? Yes. Was he ‘unforgiven’? Yes.
This parable answers your complicated challenge.
Ok, maybe it is just me, but it sure seems that the author of this piece is reading into it through his Roman lenses.
CLEARLY, if someone has an unforgiving heart, then they are a practitioner of hypocrisy in the highest order. A child of God will always be willing to forgive, however imperfectly. If someone’s heart is so hardened that they refuse to forgive, then they truly cannot know Him.
There are some subtleties here, but then again, much of the difference between Roman and Protestant theology hinges on some subtleties. However, the explicit teaching of Scripture is this:
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” - Ephesians 8:9-10
“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” - Romans 3:28
For the Romanist to declare that Justification is not by faith alone flies in the face of the clear, ordinary reading of these passages. Plus, when it all comes down to it, does it not render the Lord’s shed blood ineffectual and weak, if it is up to US to add our menstrual rags works (that’s what the Bible calls them) to the equation? Then, if so, why did Jesus even bother die for our sins? He could’ve skipped the entire ordeal and just left it all to us, rather than some of it.
Friends, please don’t abandon the Gospel’s purity and clarity for the sake of works. Works is what every other system of religion tells us we need to know god. Christianity is a fellowship with GOD through the work of JESUS, and it is victorious and triumphant. Now, go and LIVE and LOVE for Him!
Good post.