An Interesting Post Against Eternal Security

Indeed he did, allowing 1500 years for his writings to be distorted to the point where they could be misconstrued to teach something very foreign to our Apostle, as has indeed been the case.

 

Fallacy of limited alternatives... there is absolutely nothing that limits the options to the ones you produced.

Or, a minority did understand it but their history has been largely lost.

Further, you assume way too much by "poorly worded". You have not established that a well worded Bible doesn't support OSAS. That is simply your interpretation.

You have tried to use your assumption as a foundation.

or that your premise that no one understood it is incorrect.

Major premise and minor premise are both flawed. Therefore the conclusion is not proven.

God never guarnateed that a majority would get it right. In fact, there are several texts that imply just the opposite.

 

Indeed he did, allowing 1500 years for his writings to be distorted to the point where they could be misconstrued to teach something very foreign to our Apostle, as has indeed been the case. </font>[/QUOTE]Yes... one way or the other.

I feel fairly secure however in the scholarship behind calvinism/OSAS and being on the side opposed to the RCC view. From what I have read, I wouldn't even trust the testimony of the first Pope... lost men are not a good source for doctrine.

 

Not so! Although we don't have the means of knowing what everyone down through the ages believed, we do have the means to know what thousands of them did believe. And since in none of the thousands of writings that we have from before 1500 do we find any one defending the doctrine of conditional security against any doctrine other than universalism, and many defending the doctrine of conditional security against the doctrine of universalism, there is no good reason to suppose the doctrine of eternal security was known to anyone prior to 1500.

• Those who teach conditional security have hundreds of writing from before 1500 that explicitly teach that doctrine, and thousands more that indirectly teach that doctrine.

• Those who teach eternal security do NOT have EVEN ONE piece of writing from before 1500 that explicitly teaches that doctrine.

 

I have seen that RCC diversion countless times. You have no data between the New Testament and John Calvin that supports your position, so you bring up the irrelevant false teaches of the RCC.

Personally, I don’t play that way.

 

Jesus came to this world to die for men who could not work their way to eternal life, and still they think they can do it themselves. We'll just call it perseverance of the saints, and say were doing it together with Jesus. He provides the grace and I provide the works, and together we can save me. Thats teamwork, eh? Problem is, only the blood of Jesus Christ can save us in eternity. We had nothing to do with that sacrifice, and it is only that sacrifice that saves us. If we could not do anything to deserve receiving that gift in the first place, how do we imagine that we could do anything to deserve to keep it?

 

Luke 17
12 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
13 And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
14 And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
19 And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Do we dare read on?
19 1/2 And them 9 other guys were never truly cleansed to begin with.
Good thing verse 19 1/2 was removed from my bible.

 

Ephesians 2:8,9 reads, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

Grace is God's part, faith is our response that God commands. Salvation is secured in Jesus Christ.

 

No, faith is not an action, a response to grace. Faith is belief. Some faith demands action, other faith requires lack of action.

Observe:
Matt 9
27 And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou son of David, have mercy on us.
28 And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord.
29 Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.

These blind men were not required to do anything, just believe. There is no outward evidence of their belief, other than the fact that they did indeed regain their site. But who did it? Jesus did it. They believed that Jesus was able. And He did.

Numbers 21
8 And the LORD said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

All the Israelites had to do in this case was look at a snake on a stick, and they were 'saved' from death. Now you must be asking, what has this to do with faith? Well, if they didn't believe it, they probably wouldn't have looked at the snake. But there was no outward act required of them other than what they were plainly commanded to do, look at the serpent. Moses did not even tell the Israelites that if they really looked at the serpent, they would feel truly sorry for ever having been bitten in the first place.

John 3
14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

He said it twice, just to make sure you go it. Whosoever believeth. Moses' Israelites had to do more to be saved from a snake bite than you do to be saved from the eternal penalty of your sin. We cannot add anything to this, we cannot take anything away from it. Whosoever believeth.

Praise God for His mercy and lovingkindness! He was not willing that any should perish. He made it so easy that a child can figure it out, but wise men in all their wisdom are dumbfounded by it.

John 6:40
And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

Do you believe on Jesus? Do you believe He is able to raise you up? Then according to your faith it will be done unto you. Your part in this operation is the believing part. Jesus will do the raising up. God never puts a condition on a promise after the fact. He said if you believe, He will do it. If you believed, He's already done it. It just hasn't happened yet.

 

Amen! And anyone who teaches conditional security would agree with this 100% unless he is a heretic, and yes, there are a few of those. However, the gift of salvation is just exactly that—a gift! And just like any other gift, in order to have it, one must receive it. But it is a very precious gift, a gift given out of love with no strings attached. And neither are their any ropes or chains fastening the believer to that gift. God is a very loving God, and He has never put any believer in chains.

Those who believe in eternal security, however, believe in a God that has put the believer in chains for eternity, while those who believe in conditional security believe that God is very much too loving to put ANY believer in chains. We believe that the believer is set free from the bonds and chains of sin, not to be placed again in chains to a “free gift,” but to be set free in Christ to live for eternity with Christ in total freedom.

Every born-again Christian is a free man. Totally, radically free!

John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
John 8:34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
John 8:35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
John 8:36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

God will never betray us and steel our free will! We will always have the freedom to give back any gifts that we receive. We have been set free in Christ, not chained to the gift of eternal life. If we should decide to forsake that gift and accept an offer from Satan instead, we, being free in Christ, have the freedom to do just exactly that.

For six years I served as the senior pastor of an inner-city church. We were not formally a Baptist church, nor did we have the word Baptist on any of our signs, literature, or advertisements. Nonetheless, very many backslidden Christians came to that church, heard a dynamic presentation of the Gospel, saw it being lived in our lives, and recommitted their lives to Christ. The very large majority of these backslidden Christians were Baptists whose faith had been in eternal security rather in the blood atoning death of Christ on the cross for their sins. Sure, they believed in their head that Christ died for their sins, but in their heart they believed that they were eternally secure because at one time or another they had prayed and asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins and be their Lord and Savior.

That guarantee of eternal life, no matter what they might do, had proven to be an overwhelming temptation to indulge in the flesh. But there was a public park only two blocks away that backslidden Christians frequented. Two of them were former Baptist pastors who past their time sitting on a bench in that park so drunk that they were drooling and vomiting all over themselves while quoting the Bible to each other to prove that they were the more spiritual of the two. And other backslidden Christians, who had not yet fallen that far, saw those two former Baptist pastors and saw in them where they were really headed—and they did not want that kind of eternity.

As an inner-city church that ministered to those the other churches didn’t want, we personally witnessed the ravages of the licentious doctrine of eternal security as preached in many Baptist churches today. When those Christians who were ravaged by that doctrine, and forced out of the plush suburbanite churches where they were once members, and still needed a place to worship and pray, they came to our church and learned the joy of the freedom from the bonds and chains of sin, and realized for the first time in their lives that they were totally free. That message brought to them much joy and they went out into the highways and byways, found others who had been lied to and ravaged, and brought them to a church were they were not only welcome, but very much wanted, and where there were abundant opportunities for them to begin that very day to serve their Lord and Savior as a valuable member of the body of Christ and actually experience being a Christian in service to their savior.

That was not a Baptist church, quote unquote, and my associate pastors were not Baptists, but I was, and no doctrines were taught in that church that in anyway were in conflict with Baptist beliefs. However, we were not in bondage to the false doctrine of eternal security that many Baptist churches have placed themselves in bondage to. We preached a liberating Gospel, a gospel of freedom from all bonds and chains to sin and freedom to serve our savior with no strings attached. We preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ found in the New Testament, the Gospel that the early church taught that caused it to grow like wildfire.



[ October 06, 2004, 02:27 AM: Message edited by: Craigbythesea ]

 

"conditional? security"

Just as salvation is not conditioned by any sort of works by man, the security of the believer is not maintained by the works of man either.

"He who has the Son Has Life." To paraphrase what Jesus said: You(God) gave them to me, I died for them, no one can take them from me.

"Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish..."

We have a tendancy to make "continuous salvation"(like trans-substantiation)out of something that took place once for all. Millions of people(so-called followers of Christ) think that we must "eat of His flesh" and "drink of His blood" to maintain salvation.

There have been millions who have repudiated such an heresy--their history is written in blood.

Children of God are redeemed with a price--"IT IS FINISHED".

Selah,

Bro. James

 

You contradicted yourself in the first sentence by writing, “No, faith is not an action, a response to grace.” If response is not an action what is it? Faith is the response God wants. In Hebrews 11:6 is recorded, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Is not faith a coming to God? That is an action.

If you don’t believe faith is an action then why did you give so many examples of action? If faith is not an action then why was the book of James written?

If you look at the NT, faith is always an action verb. It is never static but dynamic. In the book of James he talks about a lifeless, pseudo, dead faith and compares it to a genuine, saving faith–a faith in Jesus Christ accompanied by works from a living saving faith. The dead faith or pseudo faith is accompanied by dead works.

Faith is always accompanied by action. The action stems from the faith one possesses.

 

If you read what I said, you would understand what I said. Faith is not an action, OR a response to grace. It is belief. That is all it is. If you believe that you are required to act, then that faith demands action. If that faith demands action and you do not act, then that faith is dead. It is still faith. You quote Hebrews 11:6. Thats great, brother. Now show me the scripture that says Whosoever Pleases God will be raised up on the last day.

 

The only problem I see is that how do you explain what it states in 1 Peter 1. The word for reserved in “reserved in heaven for you,” is a perfect participle. Also Paul dealt with the issues you brought up in Romans when he said, “Shall we sin that grace may abound? May it never be!” In Jon 10:27-30 Jesus addresses the issue of the security of the believer. 1 John 5:11-13 the writer deals with the issues again.

Being secure brings about great security. Knowing that I am secure in Christ makes me know that God will not let me loose on a whim. He disciplines his own.

I think what you presented is the result of a lack of leadership and discipleship in the church. When Peter denied Christ three times was he secure in his salvation or not. He most certainly was looking at himself and not Christ. He was secure in Christ in spite of his lack of obedience and focus on Christ.

It is true that many who believe they are saved acts like they are not. But I have taken some of those kind of people who will accept the challenge and within six months you would never know they are the same person. A few years ago in the congregation I was pastoring was a lady who I wasn’t sure is she was saved or not. But she started coming to a Bible study and then the Sunday morning prayer meeting. It was only a few months before she started having a local ministry with children in the area. One of the ladies in the church began to disciple her. Within one year she was a totallly different person. She was 66. The same thing happened to another lady who was 65. The issue is not do they look saved but are they a disciple. Too often we leave them as babies to flounder and flop around like a fish on a rock.

The stats show that before people are even taken through discipleship materials there is about a 10 percent interest in spiritual things but afterwards that number reverses to about 90 percent. I have never seen a person ever doubt their salvation who was being discipled and certainly discipling others.

Jesus called us to be His disciples not His babies. He never called us to just be born again only but to make disciples. John said that he had no greater joy than to know his children walk in the truth. Discipleship is not to be left up to chance but to be a deliberate action by the disciples to disciple those who need to learn how to walk with God and be obedient.

 

USe a Greek English lexicon and look up the word for faith. You will quickly realize it is a verb and not a noun as in English.

 

I have seen that RCC diversion countless times.</font>[/QUOTE] That's a convenient counter. The RCC was the dominant force in religion and politics for over 1000 years. Nothing was printed, propagated, or proclaimed without its approval.

Most of the evidence we have for opposing views in early disputes is from the negative.

My military history teacher in college repeated a true axiom: The winners write the history books.

First, the RCC is not irrelevant since it determined what people were allowed to believe without being persecuted as heretics for over 1000 years. The Reformation freed men and minds for the first time in many centuries to look at the scripture, interpret it, and proclaim differences with official church dogma. You cannot simply discount the fact that this freedom led both Luther and Calvin to very soon reject the "Church's" view on salvation.

Second, I don't need any "data" except for the NT. I didn't start from a historical basis. I took the arguments on the biblical cases presented to support them before I knew anything about John Calvin.

During much of the same period you cite as evidence for conditional salvation, it was also widely held that they were in the "millenium". The Latin Vulgate was considered to have replaced the Greek and Hebrew originals in authority.

Historical evidence has limits. Scripture provides an absolute limit. What is true is true regardless of who believes it.

Either you are right, I am right, or somehow we are both wrong. However, our belief on that matter doesn't change the truth of it one iota.

 

Dear Graig,

As you said believe what you will neither you or I have to answer for our salvation to eavch other.

Jesus has promised to never cast me out that is good enough for me. I don't care what all the Popes said. I have already been threatened with ex-communication when I left the RCC anyway.

See you in heaven brother (whether you think you will be there or not).

HankD

 

I suppose it is only to be expected that those who misconstrue the words of the beloved Apostle Paul would also misconstrue my words. After all, when a man has no data to refute the arguments of his opponent, the only recourses that he has are to admit that he is wrong or to misconstrue his opponent’s data. Personally, I have no desire to win a debate, even by telling the truth; my desire is simply to tell the truth and I am thankful that the owner of this message board allows me to do that.

</font>[/QUOTE]In other words, you can't answer the question. Either way, it shoots your unbiblical doctrine all to pieces.

 

USe a Greek English lexicon and look up the word for faith. You will quickly realize it is a verb and not a noun as in English. </font>[/QUOTE]We have a verb for it in english too, it's called 'believe'

 

James Newman wrote,

James,

What does this passage have to do with our discussion? Do you think that you see in these verses some support for the doctrine of eternal security?