[Melian]

I agree with you. We just can’t know. Only God knows who’s saved. Catholics don’t believe there is a rigid formula about it, nor do we believe that one “born again” moment in a lifetime is enough for salvation. It must still be earned. The only way to earn it is to make a lifetime of choices to do God’s will, not your own.

Wasn’t it St. Paul who said he worked on his salvation every day- in fear and trembling? He obviously knew he belonged to Christ but that salvation could be lost.

[firebrand]

Asserting that we can't know who is saved is not the same as saying we can know who isn't saved. That is what Catholics do with their rigid formulations about dying in a state of mortal sin.

There are two separate arguments here, somehow getting smushed into one: Whether we are saved once and for all, and whether we know if another person is saved. The first is possible, the second is not.

[ScubieNuc]

I agree with you. We just can’t know. Only God knows who’s saved.

Really? Then why did John write this:

1John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.

Wasn’t it St. Paul who said he worked on his salvation every day- in fear and trembling? He obviously knew he belonged to Christ but that salvation could be lost.

Not quite the right understanding of the verse. The verse you are thinking of is Philipians 2:12, but to understand it you need to look at it's context.

The context is people claiming to have Christ in them, so Paul is telling them to show that on the outside. The word that gets translated "work out" is katergazomai which basically means to show or demonstrate. It doesn't mean what people think of today. Like if my son says that his fishing line is tangled and I say "work it out yourself".

One other aspect of this is that if you believe Paul is saying that a person is saved through their works, then he is contradicting himself from what he wrote to others, like in Ephesians:

Eph. 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.

[Semper Mark]

"I agree with you. We just can’t know. Only God knows who’s saved."

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
(1 John 5:13)

-----

"It must still be earned. The only way to earn it is to make a lifetime of choices to do God’s will, not your own."

"But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."
(Romans 4:5)

-----

"Wasn’t it St. Paul who said he worked on his salvation every day- in fear and trembling? He obviously knew he belonged to Christ but that salvation could be lost."

The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 1:12...

"For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day."

What had Paul committed to Christ? Only his eternal soul. Paul knew that Christ died to save him, and that He lives to keep him saved.

Salvation is a gift that was paid for by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, so the only way for one to lose their salvation would be for the blood of Christ to become of no value. Rest assured that this will not happen.
Puny little mankind thinking that he can work his way into salvation and then has the ability to somehow keep himself saved by his own good works is nothing but pagan heresy.

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:"
(1 Peter 3:18)

Christ's death and resurrection is what saves, nothing else will do.

[Cvengr]

By the doctrine of grace, since there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn our salvation, there also isn’t anything we can do to lose it. It is a gift, freely given by God.

There might be those who fail to claim it and when He doesn’t interfere with their volition, they are already condemned and have no other way to salvation except through faith in Him.