Posted on 10/28/2007 5:11:19 PM PDT by pinochet
I am a Catholic who is trying to understand Protestant history and teachings, in order to better understand the history of Christianity. There is one issue that I do not understand.
According to Protestant teachings, if a person becomes saved, are his future sins forgiven? Can a person lose his salvation? If not, can assurance of salvation become a license to sin?
If Ted Haggard had gone to be with the Lord early last year, while in the process of getting a "massage" from his male "friend", would he have gone straight to heaven?
I agree, and we all have sin nature that weakens us.
We are not perfect, but we should try and be the best we can be in good faith and to repent to God regarding our sins and asking for His further grace.
No free passes, and we get one try.
“but you go evil and start to kill a few people for no reason as an adult”
Killing a person is no greater than any other sin. Lying, cheating, gossiping are also sins. Not forgiving some who wronged you is a sin. We can’t escape it, we are all sinners. Thank you Jesus for laying down Your life for us poor, miserable sinners.
Unfortunately, this subject has been misrepresented because folks try to interject non-biblical positions. Before the “sin” question is understood, try looking at the larger view of the two families presented in the Bible. It is there simplicity is found. God didn’t want any confusion on this issue.
A. The devil’s family. John 8:44 speaks of a group of people who are “of your father the devil” (see also John 8:38).
1. You entered this family by birth through your physical father, ultimately a descendant of Adam (Gen 5:3).
2. As a result of this birth, you inherited your sin nature from your father Adam (Ro 5:12).
3. As a result of your sin, you were sentenced to die (Ro 6:23 and 1 Cor 15:22). This was not physical death, but spiritual. “Death” in the Bible is “separation”.
B. God’s family. Joh 1:12-13 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
1. Your decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Saviour gave you entrance into God’s family. It is a biblical belief marked by faith and repentance; it is not a physical birth, it is a spiritual birth.
2. The decision to accept Christ puts you by spiritual birth, into God’s family. John 3:3, John 6:47, John 3:36, 1 John 5:12. Notice these verses are in the present tense. No matter when you read them, they apply.
C. The Result. You have a new relationship with God, which makes you a member of His family. You are not dealt with as a sinner needing salvation (because of your sin), but as
His child. It is a supernatural transaction at the moment of you belief: Believe in what? ——>> 1 Cor 15:1-4 (the Gospel of Jesus Christ).
D. Salvation by Works?
1. Salvation is by grace (Eph 2:8-9). Unmerited favor, no one deserves it. It is a gift. No one can lose salvation because no one can EARN salvation. God is glorified, not man.
2. Gal 3:10 and Jas 2:10 tells us if we had to do anything to earn or keep salvation, we’d lose it easily.
3. 2 Tim 1:12 assures us that we can’t lose salvation because Jesus Christ is the person who keeps it, not we ourselves.
4. Gal 2:21 teaches us if there were anything you could do to earn salvation, than the death of Jesus Christ was a waste.
5. There is absolutely NOTHING that can separate you from your salvation: Romans 8:38-39. You salvation is secure because of your new relationship with God.
6. God tells you of a new birth certificate (record) for those “born again” into His family: 1 John 5:11-13. Your birth certificate was marked with a seal by the Holy Spirit of God (Eph 1:13, 4:30).
E. Basic Questions:
1. Will I sin after I am saved? Yes, you still have you old sin nature (Ro 7:25). That is another study, but the short answer is: God doesn’t see you as a sinner: He see’s you through the blood of Jesus, which cleanses you completely at the moment of salvation.
2. How does my sin affect my relationship with my Father? God does not kick you out of His family (John 6:37). When you sin, He disciplines you as a child (Heb 12:5-11).
3. What should I do when I sin? Confess it and trust the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse you (1 John 1:6-10; Prov 28:13). Repent from it (turn away from it) and ask God to give you a hatred for that sin so you can “revenge all disobedience” by doing what is right (2 Cor 10:3-6).
4. What if I don’t feel saved? Your salvation is not based on feelings. It is based upon the objective factual truth of the Word of God (1 John 3:20). Don’t trust your heart (Jer 17:9). Just believe what God has already said: 1 John 2:25: And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
I pray this helps you in your study.
What a wonderful friend we have in JESUS.
Again, we can make all the efforts to NOT sin we want. We will still sin against God because we live in a world controlled by Satan. “For ALL have sinned, and come short of the Glory of God.”-Romans 3:23
Thank you! I give all the honor to Jesus and the Holy Spirit for providing the words and examples. :*)
“According to Protestant teachings, if a person becomes saved, are his future sins forgiven? Can a person lose his salvation? If not, can assurance of salvation become a license to sin?”
Yes, all sins are forgiven through Jesus’ redemptive work on the cross, for those who believe. No, you can’t lose your salvation. No, it is not a license to sin.
***
“If Ted Haggard had gone to be with the Lord early last year, while in the process of getting a ‘massage’ from his male ‘friend’, would he have gone straight to heaven?”
Yes, if he was truely a Christian, i.e. if he had a personal relationship with Jesus and had a true conversion (was born again, was a new person in Christ). We don’t know if he was/is or wasn’t/isn’t.
***
“Another Example - If you repented your sins last month, and got saved. But you then ended up dying suddenly, today, without fresh repentance for any sins you may have committed over the past month. Will you go to heaven?
Should you be sinless at the time of your death to go to heaven?”
Yes, you would go to heaven. Salvation is not dependent on confession of each and every sin. No, no one is “sinless” except for Jesus.
Romans comes first in order of the great doctrinal epistles. And rightly so, for it contains the ABC of the believer's education. Until its lession is learned, we know and can know nothing. The Holy Spirit has placed it first in Canonical order because it lies at the threshold of all 'church' teaching, and if we are wrong here we shall be wrong altogether.
Romans 6
Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ
1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Slaves to Righteousness
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ Jesus our Lord.
There’s really nothing complex about it. Salvation is based on faith. My Bible simply says “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.” I am taught that Christ’s pain at Calvary was less from the nails in his hands and feet but more from the heartbreaking burden of taking onto himself all worldly sin, present and future. As a Christian, I know that I will sin until the day I die but as the song lyrics say, Jesus is enough for me.
Nobody goes to hell for sin. Look in Revelation at the bema seat and the Great White Judgment Seat.
Sin was already paid for on the cross.
We are already condemned, faith alone in Christ alone places us in position where God by His grace gives us salvation.
Once we are in the Book of Life, nothing we can ever do will ever remove it. Only if we reject Him and His work does He not know us might the name be scratched out. Once we are His, we are part of His family and His body. We might not live up to the rewards predestined for us in heaven and they remain as an eternal memorial, on the shelf, as it were, fall all to witness for all eternity, but it isn’t called eternal life for merely a temporary ordeal.
Confession and repentence are issues regarding post salvation sin and how we walk with the Spirit in fellowship with Him.
If we sin after salvation, and we do, then until we confess and repent per 1st John 1:9 our sanctification process halts and we begin to backslide in our living. Our thinking gets scarred in sin and we stop advancing by His Plan for us.
So if we get hit by a car, we still go to heaven after salvation, but if not in fellowship, we simply leave some rewards on the table which He will never give us for we failed to win that portion of the race as it were.
“Does making a deliberate effort to avoid sinning, be described as “works”
It depends, if by avoiding a street that has an Xrated theater because one has a self acknowledged before God weakness for porn, that might be termed “Carrying our cross and following Christ” The Bible talks about our need to “Work out our Salvation with fear and trembling” before God.
The works of Salvation are a bit different from the works of men and ethics. Outward genuflexive practises designed for public show are not the saving kind. The inner introspective/ self reflexive work involving prayer, study, fasting, and ultimately repentence as God grants knowledge and wisdom produces the works INDICATIVE of salvation, or Spiritual Fruits.
The Holy Spirit indwells a man and renews his inner man day by day(”the outer man perishes but the inner man is renewed day by day”). You don’t give alms to the poor in response to an outer exhortation, you become a conduit of God’s love so that what you have to give already belongs to God, you just simply go along with the flow. You die daily to self(or at least for most of us we try to to make a reasonable attempt according to the measure of our faith granted to each of us)!
The ark of the covenant was special for a number of reasons not many of us suspect! Yes it was the symbolic presence of God for the Hebrews and indeed, God’s Shekinah glory rested in the “glory” seat between the to opposing Cherubim images carved on the top of the ark. But what most of us don’t get is that the ark was a vision of the future....that of a completed, spirit filled man or woman.
The Opposing Cherubims of our nature are the left and right hemisphere of our brains with an unregenerated consciousness doing its best to keep body and mind integrated.
This has often been called a “God shaped vacuum” in need of its savior! God wants his Shekinah glory to sit in each of our own personal “glory” seats, re-creating us with the minds of Christ thus becoming “Living Arks” or “living Temple”s filled with his glory!
Thus as God works in us, we become vessels of his Glory and the works we do come out of the excess and out working of his Glory through us. We learn to “co-operate” and die to self. Our true work becomes the bearing of Christ’s yoke and maintain our faith in the face of adversity!
So do good works...but not for the hope of Salvation for that has been done inside of you already; but rather do good works as you are a conduit of the love of Christ that flows through you within the power and measure of your faith that God has currently granted you!
Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind and love you neighbor as yourself....Those are the greatest 2 true works and all other works will naturally flow from those two as we work out our Salvations with “fear and trembling”!(There are often tears and heart rending realizations that come when we build our realtionship with God, but then forgivenes comes and grace...then a Peace that passes all understanding...springs of living joyous spiritual water that well up in the soul that just make you feel like you could just go bust if you didn’t sing or praise God and just tell somebody about it!)
“Having begun a good work in you, he will in no doubt likewise complete it in the day of Resurrection!” Paul the Apostle
Bless you!
Nope, once saved, God the Holy Spirit seals us.
Even if God really wanted to send us to hell, He couldn’t and remain immutable in His nature. Besides, it isn’t what we do that saves us. It’s all God’s work.
He isn’t saving us because of something we do. He saves us because of His grace. He foreknew us from eternity past. He will not give salvation unless the conditions are met and He sees something righteous in us. He already knew from eternity past every sin we would commit. Sin isn’t the issue.
While I am not of the belief “once saved, always saved” I do agree wholeheartedly with the above statement.
BTW, I love your tag line LOL
The father loved the prodigal son and received him with open arms when he returned to him. IMHO, that is speaking of love and grace, rather than forgiveness.
All part and parcel of Jesus’s love for us. :*)
No free rides, I think the deal is you have to either repent later again (if you are able to).
You are supposed to regret your sin, and to try and repent of your sin.
I do not think we are supposed to think we can do any sin you want free of retribution because you once accepted Christ. I think additionally you have to accept your own wrong doing and to be fighting the good fight against your sin nature.
NO FREE RIDES!
Outstanding summation. Thanks.
Thanks. A fellow FReeper suggested it one day when I was having a particularly annoying time with a coworker.
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