Posted on 05/17/2015 5:59:53 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A common question for many is, "Can I lose my salvation?" I've heard both sides of the argument, and only God truly knows a person's heart, but I can share a few thoughts. The reason there is a debate is because the Scriptures teach that salvation is a gift from God that cannot be earned, but they also offer warnings about falling away. There should be a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority.
One school of thought suggests that salvation cannot be lost, as in losing your car keys, but that it can be left, as in walking away from it. This may be why Jesus spoke of the man who said in his heart "my master delays His coming; therefore, I will turn from living a godly life". When the master returned unexpectedly, the servant was banished because he chose to turn from what he knew to be right.
In another passage, Jesus said, "You have left your first love," when speaking to the church in Ephesus (Revelation 2:4). James 5:19-20 adds, if anyone wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, a soul is saved from death. If anything, these Scriptures, and many more, reinforce the fact that we have certain responsibilities.
We should never turn from what we know to be right. Jesus encouraged His followers to be watchful, prepared, and ready for His return. Are we watchful? Are we prepared? Are we ready? (Read Matthew 24:45-51; Luke 21:34.) The Scriptures offer a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.
The other school of thought suggests that some of those passages are dealing with people who never fully surrendered to Christ. As a result, they fell away. They heard the gospel, but never fully embraced it and turned from their sins; they only had "intellectual" knowledge of salvation. According to this view, the real question isn't, "Can a person lose their salvation" but "Was the person really saved to begin with?"
Titus 1:16 and James 2:14 both conclude that many people "say" that they know God, but deny Him by their lifestyle. I John 2:19 suggests that those who acknowledge Christ initially, but deny Him later, are not saved to begin with: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us."
When it comes to salvation, we all agree that God gets all the glory and all the credit. Salvation is His work. We are never outside of His sovereignty and control: "It is God who makes us stand firm in Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:21). I am convinced, like Paul, "that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). Nothing can separate us from God, but we should never ignore the strong warnings about turning from Him.
When we believe the gospel and repent of our sin we "are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession" (Ephesians 1:13-14). These promises are not based on anything that we do; they are based on what Christ did. John 3:36 says, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." Jesus adds, "I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28). Again, "It is God (not us) who makes us stand firm in Christ." For this reason, I don't believe that we can lose it.
Our salvation is guaranteed based on the assurances found in Scripture, but we also must "work out our own salvation with fear and trembling" (cf. Philippians 2:12). My goal is to be faithful to the command to preach, witness, and proclaim while understanding that God does the drawing, saving, and sealing.
Again, I believe that there should be a healthy tension between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. This issue should not create a spirit of division, elitism, or theological superiority. At the heart of the division is Calvinism vs. Arminianism. Sadly, brother is shooting brother and sister is wounding sister. Have we forgotten how to show grace to those in the Body who we disagree with? Those who believe you can lose your salvation should not chide those who believe in eternal security - "once saved always saved" is by no means a license to sin - it's a belief in God's guarantee. But on the flip side, those who embrace eternal security should not mock those who disagree.
I can hear it now, "But what about Hebrews 6:4-6." It says, "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age, if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace."
Based on my understanding of terms such as "enlightened," "tasted," and "shared," they are not necessarily words linked to salvation. Judas Iscariot was enlightened—he knew a great deal. He also tasted and shared in the ministry of Christ, but we all know his fate. When he fell away, repentance was elusive. His fate was sealed. However, this verse should force all Christians to take inventory.
We all sin and fall short, but the important question to ask is what is the condition of your heart—have you truly repented and believed in Christ as your Lord and Savior, or are you trusting in false assurance? This may be why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 13:5, "Examine yourself as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?"
Our actions reveal a great deal about our relationship with Christ. A.W. Tozer said: "When people find that after being in the church for years they are not making much progress, they ought to examine themselves and wonder whether they have been truly converted."
Has your heart become so hard as to reject Jesus Christ? If so, you can change that today. I'm aware that I'm driving this point home, but I'd rather err on the side of speaking too much about a committed relationship with Jesus than too little. It's never too late to get back on track: "Return to me, and I will return to you," says the Lord (Micah 3:7). God is sovereign but man has a responsibility to repent and return.
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Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship in Lancaster, California, just North of Los Angeles. He just released his 7th book, Desperate for More of God. Shane's sermons, articles, books, and radio program can all be found at www.wcfav.org.
We gotta chuckle ever now and then or we’d ALL go nuts!
It's the old Mormon strawman again.
Just DO the things SLC tells you.
You'll be OK then.
Mormon sacraments are MUCH more effective than Catholic ones!
How DARE you actually read the account of this in the Psalms!
Always be careful when exchanging with a Mormon. Their religion is very different from Christianity.
A man is Saved by God's Grace. There is no sin which can reverse what God does and that's why no man can take a saved person away from Jesus or God. If there is some sin you could commit after being Born Again by the Spirit, then you could not be saved to start with because that would violate what Jesus guarantees and contradict His assertion. Grace is an awesome thing when you really start to see how it works. Mormons don't want grace unless they can earn it after all that they can do ...
Mormons aren’t the only “earned grace” groups around here, MHG. Day in. Day out. “On the road to being saved”. It’s a real heartbreaker.
My post 104, I think, does a good job in covering lots of the other things you have mentioned. But this verse here is not strong at all for proving that we may "fall from grace." The verse literally says that the people who fall from grace are the ones who are "justified by works." Verse 10 speaks of "other-mindedness," and being in confidence that believers will not take another view. IOW, Paul is speaking of doctrine. It is reasonable to conclude that Paul is speaking here only that if a person is truly justified by works, then they must forsake grace in order to do so. This is an argument against a theology of works-righteousness. IOW, "if we are saved by works, we fall from grace." It is not teaching that Christians can "fall from grace." If you want to take it strictly literally, then we must hold that only those who are justified by the law fall from grace.
Thus he says "I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain." (1 Thessalonians 3:5)
Indeed, but we should not stretch this into believing that Paul believed his labour to be the deciding factor of salvation. The scripture is clear that Paul plants, others water, but that the "increase" belongs to the LORD. In other words, salvation depends on God's grace alone, and not on the working or desiring of others. We are tools, yes, but we are tools in the hands of God, and He works also inwardly as well as outwardly. Even in the case of repentance, the scripture uses such language as "perchance God will grant him repentance." In John 15, Christ even explicitly says "ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," and goes on to declare that He produces fruit in the elect, and preserves it also.
The entire message of this is that salvation is monergistic, even when God threatens and offers and commands or judges. See my post 104.
I know, it's a nasty habit I just can't seem to break. I will just have to try harder to accept what cultists say, without checking things out for myself. 😂. Hey, I know I am a hater (See my Limerick) and it's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it. 😎
Not to nitpick, but actions are not the same as works. Jesus said, "Choose." Jesus said, "Believe." Choosing and believing are acts of will.
Choosing to receive a gift freely offered is not a work that makes you deserving of the gift, else the gift is not free to begin with.
What other type of sin is there, if not willing? Isn't the very definition of sin a willful act of rebellion against God?
First let me say, that I think most Mormons are very nice, law abiding, good people. Having said that, I usually DO NOT have discussions with Mormons, because I always first tell them that I think the Book of Mormon is a fairy tale, possibly written by Joe Smith, with the intention of selling his story to make money. I do not know for sure, but Smith might not have even been trying to start a new religion, but it took off and he just went along with it. After that, they usually don't wish to talk about it. So be it, but they, and others, engage in cult speak. Their terms mean different things to us. We have to define our terms, or we are not speaking the same language. They are bringing a different gospel to us, and you know what Paul said about that. Look, I have had Mormon, and other cult friends in the past, but in order to stay friendly, we had to refrain from talking about spiritual issues. My MIL is with the INC. That is an exercise in futility, but we hang in there. That is what Dr Walter Martin told me personally a couple of times. 😇
Do you know for a fact that David went to hell?
You do err, knowing neither thr Scriptures nor the power of God.
"And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the LORD. And Nathan said unto David, The LORD also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die" (2 Sam. 12:13 AV).
When God forgives, He also forgets. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 Jn. 1:9 AV)
David abjectly confessed/repented and God completely forgave.
Furthermore, David did not lay a hand on Uriah, therefore Uriah was not murdered. He willingly died in battle. Furthermore, Uriah was a Gentile, and should not have been marrying a Jewish girl. The sentence for that alone was death.
Thanks for catching that mistake.
God charges David with Uriah's murder.
Simply because David did not physically do the act with his own hand, doesn't mean he wasn't responsible for his death, murder, actually.
Leviticus 5:17-19
“If a person sins and violates any of the Lord's commandments which must not be violated (although he did not know it at the time...
The BoM is their Bait-and-Switch material.
They'll go on and on about it; when they KNOW that hardly any of their DOCTRINE comes from it.
The REAL meat (versus the BoM milk) is found in their OTHER Scriptures; which they do NOT "ask you to read and pray about".
Heck; Stormy doesn't even want to talk about his chosen religion: Mormonism!
He's just trying to undermine the accuracy and teachings of 2000 years of Christianity first.
These others guys are just laying low; I guess.
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