"Never Saved To Begin With"

HP: What would it matter if I did? Would you accept it or reject any such examples or reject them off hand due to the holding of the presupposition of OSAS?

Because you asked, I will give you both an OT example and a NT one. Saul in the OT is as clear a any I would believe, and Judas in the NT would be yet another. Just the same, only God Himself knows absolutely the fate of those men, but that still in no way takes away from the clear warnings of Scripture that such can indeed be the case, and we are to give careful diligence not to allow deception and sin to draw us away from our relationship with God. If no one ever had fallen from their state of salvation, (which I do not believe is true) Scripture warns us over and over that the possibility exists and to give heed lest we fall.

HP: Tell me how Adam and Eve feel. That would give us some clear insight. In our day and age, it often starts with the false notion of OSAS and a careless attitude, rejecting the warnings of Scripture, that sin in some way will escape the judgment of God if persisted in without sincere repentance.

HP: No believer is God. If in fact God’s Spirit no longer strives or indwells man, it is not without man’s willful rejection of the truth and grace god afforded them.

HP: How do you establish that it is impossible?

 

"What IF" even ONE person that believes "inherit the kingdom of God does NOT MEAN saved" could actually prove such a wild notion with an actual Bible text?

"WHAT IF" even ONE person that believes "WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of God" means "SAVED ANYWAY" could actually SHOW a Bible text for such a wild notion?

"What IF"??!!

Apparently it is not going to happen here - maybe some other thread.

(Lacy - if you are going to make posts that just ask me to keep highlighting the gap in what you have said above - time after time... I am happy to oblige but i am not sure how this helps your argument)


in Christ,

Bob

 

Lacy,

Many Christians understand John 3:3,5 telling us, a person must be born again, or cannot see the kingdom of God, use our common sense, of 'cannot see the kingdom of God' speaks of cannot have eternal life with Christ- salvation.

Nowhere in Bible saying kingdom of God is so called millennial, neither anywhere in the Bible saying that the kingdom of God shall be last for only 1000 years.

Kingdom of God is spiritual from above, and it is eternality.

1 Cor. 6:9-11 & Gal. 5:19-21 both telling us, anyone who do practical wicked things, shall not have eternal life with Chrust, go to everlasting fire.

Bible teaching us very clear and simple.

In Christ
Rev. 22:20 -Amen!

 

All you have to do is look at the audience that Paul is addressing. Just do it. Show me a scrap of evidence showing that he stops in the middle of a discourse on practical holiness for the Corinthian believers and switches to warning the unsaved.

So you don't believe that "WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of God" means "WILL NOT inherit the kingdom of God?"

That is a very enigmatic hermeneutic there brother.


Show me one hint in the whole passage that salvation is ever questioned.

You have to assume that a believer can lose salvation to even attempt to prove your interpretation.


-Lacy

PS. Enigmatic Hermeneutic -That'd make a cool name for a punk band!

 

Originally Posted by BobRyan
"What IF" even ONE person that believes "inherit the kingdom of God does NOT MEAN saved" could actually prove such a wild notion with an actual Bible text?

You are not following the discussion - I am arguing that he IS warning the saved about the danger of losing salvation.

 

No, I know full well what you are arguing. I am arguing that he is warning the saved about the danger of not inheriting the Kingdom of God.

Lacy

 

I see evidence for this "Never Saved To Begin With" in the statement of Jesus Christ at John 8:31b, where He said “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine” (NASB).

An `If p then q' statement and its contrapositive are always logically equivalent. The contrapositive of John 8:31b is:
`If are not disciples of Mine, then you will not continue in My word.'

Or, retrospective from the future:
`If you were not disciples of Mine, then you did not continue in My word.'

People who are not His disciples do not continue in His Word.

This is by no means `air tight' because `If not p then not q' is not logically equivalent to `If p then q' and therefore can have equal or different truth values. Nonetheless, love it or hate it, take it or leave it, but evidence for the debated tenet does exist in Scripture.

 

I take the term "indeed", to mean "a special kind of". So IMO, the contrast is not between a disciple and an unbeliever, but rather between a "disciple" and a "disciple indeed".

The disciple has believed (as noted by the phrase "Those jews which believed"), but lacks consisteny.

The "disciple indeed" according to the text continues in his word.

 

The glaring problem with that logic is that you can not fail to KEEP doing something you were never doing!

FAILURE to KEEP on abiding in Christ can not be a sign that you never WERE abiding in Christ and so never FAILED to KEEP doing what you NEVER were doing to start with.

THE ONLY way the text above works is if OSAS is admitted to be the false doctrine that it is. This is true of ALL perseverance texts. "Failure to persevere" can NEVER be the sign that "you were never persevering to start with and so never did fail to persevere!"

But trying to cling to OSAS AND then to the text above results in a self-conflicted argument -- that only survives in the minds of those who "promise not to think about it".

in Christ,

Bob

 

What he said!

Amen (to the last part) and uh-uh to the first. It's not the only way that it works.

 

BobRyan: your post makes no sense. I quoted John 8:31b where Jesus said “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine” (NASB).

This makes no sense in light of your argument. A person will not continue in what s/he never started. Exactly, but I would think that works against you. The verse suggests that if they did not continue, they never really started.

What you are describing cannot be ascribed to the passage, either. This passage was to people who are described as "those Jews who believed Him" (ASV) -- John 8:31a.

If we are not His disciples, we will not "continue" in His Word. Therefore, if we started as if we did believe His Word, and did not continue to follow it, we were never His disciples.

I do not see how from the text.

You are assuming the premise of what is debated here. Rambling with words in capital letters does not change the fact that you are assuming what you need to show. Heat is not light; emotion is not evidence.

 

I am appealing to reason and logic here - not volume and pulpit pounding. My capital letters are for emphasis not volume.

I simply point out that you are making a self-conflicted argument of the form "The proof that you never had any faith at all to persevere in - is the fact that once having faith you failed to keep persevering in it" --

Those kinds of self-conflicted statements only work if you promise not to think about them.

if we are not Christ's disciples then all we can "continue" to do is to "continue to NOT be Christ's disciple" --OR we can FAIL to continue in NOT being Christ's disciple -- by choosing Christ, in which case NOT persevering in our current course is a GOOD thing not a bad one.

OSAS tries to bend John 8 around as in

John 8:31b, “If you do NOT continue in My word, then you never WERE a disciples of Mine” (MYTH-B).

But if we admit that OSAS is an utterly false doctrine THEN we do see the case where one IS saved and turns to Christ and accepts His word but then FAILS to continue in that saved walk of faith - and so ceases to be Christ's disciple. When they are seen to fail they are seen to NOT be His Disciple. What Christ does not say in that case is "and they never were my disciple to start with".

in Christ,

Bob

 

Actually, I think John 8:31 in without alteration does just fine.

"So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, `If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine'” (NASB).

"Continue" means to extend an action into the future. "Disciples" means "followers." If someone is Christ's follower, s/he will continue to follow Him.

Makes no sense. I do not see what this passage has to do with your assertions about non-disciples. The passage is not talking about non-disciples.

 

HP: You fail to address the issue of continuing. To continue you have to have started, otherwise the text would have said “if you begin in My Word,” which it does not state or imply. You are reading into the text notions not even remotely associated with it.
:

HP: How can you ‘extend’ an action that you say has never been started?

 

It's like falling away. How do you fall away from something where you never were to begin with?

 

Like good little Jesus robots.

 

Fine: read 8:31a "So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him" (NASB). I have quoted that passage before.

They did believe Jesus. What they were to continue had begun.

If they would continue in this, they were His disciples then. As they did believe Him, they were His disciples then, and would continue.

Actually, I believe the text indicates very clearly that they had started. I have said that before.

I believe you are twisting my posts to create illusions you wish for to make your argument easier. If `winning' here is so important to you that you would engage in conduct unbefitting of Christ's standards, I believe I shall excuse myself.

 

HP: What? Here you interject a completely unfounded personal accusation, and then rather than to explain how anything I have said or done is ‘unbefitting of Christ’s standards’ you take the road to excuse yourself. What is that old saying about the pot calling the kettle black?