Again I’m not doubting God or his promises. I’m doubting man.
Men can be wrong and they can change. They can believe, they can think they believe, wish they believed, they can stop believing; they can accept and then reject; trust and then no longer trust; bless and later curse.
OSAS is a soteriology that would bind God forever based on a man today.
We don’t know what the future holds or how we will react to it, whether our faith will endure. “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
your faith does not have to endure. When God promises you eternal life, He keeps His promises.
The penalty to you for losing your faith is losing a blessed walk in your Christian life. Not your salvation.
Listened this morning to a sermon on this very topic. To doubt eternal salvation, to believe that you can cause the loss of your salvation is bondage to doubt, to faithlessness. It is sin.
It is so easy to accept salvation, but man is so steeped in sin, pride, doubt, and guilt that we cannot accept the gift, we have to put qualifiers on it.
By saying that a man can accept Christ and do anything that would cause God to revoke salvation is sin. It is not biblical. But, over and over and over, the Bible reminds us that the gift is eternal. There is nothing we can do to earn it, there is nothing we must do to keep it. By definition, it is a gift.
[[They can believe, they can think they believe, wish they believed, they can stop believing; they can accept and then reject; trust and then no longer trust; bless and later curse.]]
Thank God that God doesn’t change- and when He said eternally saved, he meant it, even when people change their minds after salvation
[[“But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”]]
That is talking aobut the end times tribulation suffering, not losing salvation- this verse, and the others like it, are all talking aobut the promise of persevering -
Paul and the other desciples all spoke to carnal Chriatians and made it clear that these people were still Christians, and had they died that day, they were going to heaven- He didn’t tell them to ‘endure till the end or lose their salvation- he made it clear, that even In their backslidden condition they were still Christians- He did however encourage them to get their lives straightened out-