Would you please post them? OSAS isn't tradition with me. When I was younger, maybe but not now. It's scriptural but in addition to that I am also a witness. At one time I tried to "fall away". God let me know that I belonged to Him and would have no part of it.. He stayed with me and brought me back into the fold. That's why occasionally I toss a "are you sure?" to Malakhi :')
John 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Acts 13:48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Is eternal life eternal?
Or is it...
I'm sorry, I thought you had said you were OSAS.
While it is scriptural that Jesus does promise "whosoever shall believe on me shall not perish, but have everlasting life, I think there is confusion on what, precisely, he was asking us to believe.
As I see it there are two choices as to what this means
As I understand it, the second choice is rejected by some because it is clearly works based, and is therefore in violation of Pauls assertion that we are not saved through works least any should boast.
The mistake here, IMO, is that they make no distinction between works done before your coming to Jesus and the "work" of being a Christian. Paul says this:
1Cr 9:24 Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they [do it] to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible.
26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
27 But I keep under my body, and bring [it] into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
So Paul is saying -to believers in the Lord- that they must run in this race in order to obtain -Salvation, what else?- and that even he must struggle against sin (keep his body under subjection) in order that he will not lose his salvation.
Again, Paul says:
Phl 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.Does it sound here that he is telling these already saved believers that it is easy? No, and at this point it is worth considering how much of the NT is devoted to exhortations to behave, to obey, to work and to FEAR. Now why would you fear, if you knew could not lose the race?
There is more, but these are serious points to be addressed. As to the claim made by many that those that fall away were never truly saved at all, I have not able to find any discussion of that concept in the NT so far. If you, or anyone else has any scriptural citations supporting this concept, please post them, but its hard imagining that Paul, by his own words "lest I myself be a castaway", was putting himself in that category. I think he knew his conversion was real.
v.