Dewey, I've read your proof texts in both post #2211 & 2212. More about personal proof texting in a few lines. I am, I must say, right back where I was when I said I simply can't see where you people are coming from with your "once saved always saved" theories. As I understand what you profess to find in the bible, "Salvation is obtained through confessing to God that your a sinner. Asking for forgiveness and by faith asking Christ to come into your life. In to your fife (sic) for what purpose? To lead rule and guide through his word (the Bible)" Is this all? Does this happen at any random time in life? Suppose I lead a sinful, self absorbed life for 25 years and then decide all of a sudden on my 26th birthday to do exactly as you have suggested. Having done that, and assuming I live to be 101, will I spend the next 75 years in a completely sinless state? Or, conversely, am I now free to sin vigorously, as Luther unfortunately put it, without consequence to myself or creation around me?
Dewy, I suspect that your concept of what it means to be saved and what I mean when I say that one may attain a state of theosis are very different things. For you, what exactly does being saved mean; is it a temporal thing, an eternal thing, both? In this life, how does it manifest itself? After death? Finally, how do you conceive of the Fnal Judgment? How are we judged; what's the measure?
As for proof texting, allow me to suggest that unless one has received knowledge through the Holy Spirit, it is quite impossible to correctly interpret scripture. As you undoubtedly know, what you use for scripture, for the most part, was determined by The Church long prior to the rise of anything like Protestantism in councils of the hierarchs of The Church including many of the men we call The Fathers. Let us posit for the moment that these men, including the Fathers, were filled with knowledge by the Holy Spirit in order to perceive, among the many contenders for inclusion into the canon of scripture, those writings which indeed are inspired by God and appropriate for the inculcation of the Faith in an authoritative way. I assume you will accept this proposition since to say otherwise is to view Christian scriptures in the way Mohammaden heretics do theirs. Now, if the Fathers and other hierarchs and holy men of The Church were so inspired by the Holy Spirit as to correctly recognize true scripture, does it not necessarily follow that a) they were saved by your definition of salvation and b) on account of that salvation and the knowledge and understanding which flows from that, were in a position to correctly interpret those scriptures?
Assuming your honest answer is yes, what explains the fact that none, not one, of The Fathers, nor any hierarch nor holy man within the Church for at least the first 1500 years of its existence, ever suggested the sort of "salvation" you apparently believe in and further believe is testified to in scripture. What happened? Were The Fathers inspired as to what was appropriately scripture but the world had to wait until the Reformation before a correct interpretation of the scripture came about? Were they "sort of inspired", "sort of saved"? Clearly Dewy, all the proof texting in the world cannot substitute for proper interpretation now can it? If the Rev. Billy Bob Jeff with his degree from Ed's Bible College tells you one thing about the meaning of a verse from scripture, and a man who was in part responsible for the inclusion of that piece of scripture in the canon tells you something else, who are you going to believe?