Eternally Secure

I know that I am not the smartest person in the world, but God's Word is really very simple to understand, he made it so we could understand it, after all If he had made it to where we could not understand it he would not be a just God, because He is going to judge us according to his Word.

The fact is this, no matter what a person believes or wants to believe, the Word of God will prevail.

The Word of God is very plain, when it comes to the way that we must live are lives here on this earth.

He makes it very plain that no sin will inter into heaven, no matter what one would like to believe we still have a free will, God is not going to make us serve him, its up to us whether we serve him or not.

Paul said Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

as you can see the people that Paul was talking to had been set free, but he shows here that it is possible to be entangled with the yoke of bondage again, and we know that if we are in bondage we are not saved.


Galatians 5 tells us what will will not, inter into Heaven.

19. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21. Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.


Preacher Ron

 

Preacher Ron
can I ask you this. Are you saved as in completed action or are you hoping to be saved depending on your actions?

 

Eternally secure depends on "continuing" in the faith,that's the purpose of the "if" verse in the OT and NT.Your free will is a deciding factor.

 

A person has already exercised their feee will at repentance and faith.We are depending on Him to save and keep us saved, and He does. The Lord keeps us from falling, not our freewill. As I said freewill was given to get saved. That is why the second bith is greater then the creation.

 

Ron,

You say that you are not the smartest. Well, neither am I. But I would like to ask you a few questions.

Are you saved? (I am not questioning your salvation here, just moving to a point)

Who saved you, God through your belief on Jesus Christ, or Ron?

On what are you depending on to keep that salvation, the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary, or Ron?

When you stand before Jesus Christ at the bema seat, what will be your qualification to be admitted to the marriage supper of the Lamb, the eternal atoning of the blood of Christ, or Ron?

What I am getting at is this...

From what you have written here on the Board, I see that you are depending on Ron living a life good enough to stay saved. But, from what I read in the bible, man has nothing to do with the keeping of salvation. Either you are or you ain't. It is a one way ticket. I still haven't figured out how to be un-saved yet.

Now, I figure that you will either ignore what I have said, try to turn it into some sort of perversion of my intent in order to try to make yourself sound like you might have the market cornered on bible truth, or you will attempt to heat up the arguement. Note that I did not include you changing your belief, mainly because I do not expect that you ever will.

Error begets error...

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Hi Trotter

You ask me if I am saved, (The answer is yes!)

Who saved you, God through your belief on Jesus Christ, or Ron? (The answer is Christ!)

When you stand before Jesus Christ at the bema seat, what will be your qualification to be admitted to the marriage supper of the Lamb, the eternal atoning of the blood of Christ, or Ron?

If it wasn't for the blood of Christ, it would not even be possible to stand before the judgment seat of Christ in the first place.

But its up to me to remain faithful unto death.

I believe that once we have been saved, its up to us to remain in the will of God.

The only thing that I have been trying to say all along is, I know that we all sin and come short of the glory of God, but I believe that we can not continue to practice sin once we have been saved, and stay saved.

I don't want to argue about the way that I believe or the way that you believe, I think that If you and I do the best we can to live according to the Word of God, we won't have anything to worry about, I know that salvation is not by works, or anything that I have done, but I believe that their will be great consequences to be paid for those who goes against the will of God.

When it gets right down to it I guess we all need to pray for one and other.

There is one thing that I do know for sure, I have been born-again.

I hope I have answered all of your questions.

Preacher Ron

 

Ron,
in other words you are saved depending on your performance,correct?

 

No it was Christ performance that saved me!

But it's My performance to stay saved!


Note: to everyone! I will not argue about this subject anymore, I will not answer anymore questions concerning this subject, you will never change my mind on this subject, and I will not change your mind on the subject either, so I believe it's time to move on to another subject.

It should not matter to you that I believe I must travel the straight and narrow way, it sure won't hurt me to live on the straight and narrow way.

May God bless everyone of you!

Preacher Ron

 

Ron,
I understand your need to bow out and thank you for the discussion. I hope that we have other discussions in the future.

For the record to others I also hold a straight and narrow belief about being saved. However I believe that once we are saved we WILL walk that walk. Although I have always been on a Baptist role since my conversion I do feel that many Baptist take the idea of eternal security way to far adding elements to it that make the doctrine invalid.
Many teach that a person can get saved and live like a Christian for a time and then "backslide" into sin for a period of time. The bible totally disagrees with that and this is where the rift comes in. Once we are saved we not only remain saved, but we remain in our walk with the Lord. 1John 3:9

As a Christian we do still sin from time to time, but the practice of sin will never again be there. As one who came from some extremely deep and addictive sin life I can testify to that in my own case, but more then any testimony, scripture bares that out. Often times I have listened to people give testimonies where they say they got saved as a child and fell away from the Lord into sin for years and then re-dedicated their lives. First there is no such scriptural reference to that. Second what they needed was salvation, not re-dedication. I suppose that it would be all right to re-dedicate our lives if we had sliped from praying like we ought or witnessing like we ought, but if we return to living a sinful life our need is salvation since we never really got saved the first go round if we return to the practice of sin.
Salvation is not simply the declairing us to be righteous, but it is also the making us so. We become new Creations, the Old passes away and the new comes. While the Lord does leave us with the battles of the flesh and the temptation do come He also works through us to be the overcomers he calls us to be. It is true that not all Christians will walk the same walk of righteousness, but none will return to live in sin once they are saved.

 

Let me butt into this discussion for a moment. First of all there is a middle position here. However, it is contingent upon first realizing that salvation is conditional. Yes, I agree that the conditions of salvation are faith, obedience, and perseverance. However, if that is true, then salvation is based on our work. Therefore, we must understand that election to salvation is unconditional.

So, how does this work. Well those whom God has elected from the foundation of the world (Rev.13:7) will in space and time accept Him as Savior. Salvation is an ongoing event which is inaugurated by this acceptance preceded by the indwelling of the Spirit. Once this occurs, God's plan for the individual is to work out his/her salvation. How does he/she do that? Well according to Philippians 2 by God's willing. So, no one who is not saved is being sanctified and those not being sanctified are not saved. It is simple.

One last point. If we could lose our salvation (i.e. come to grace and then fall from grace), then we could never return to salvation. Homebound would be eternally lost and so would thousands just like him, for Hebrews 6 teaches us that those who have tasted and gone away require Christ to sacrifice Himself again in order for them to be saved.

So those passages that are directed to believers regarding a possible falling away are there as a warning against falling away lest they prove they are not apart of the kingdom of God (they were never saved in the first place). That is why John says that those who went out from us were not among us.

In conclusion those who are actually saved will look like the saved. Those who are not can look like it for a while, but will fall away never to return. The Holy Spirit is given as a seal, an unrevokable One.

For more info on this see the book by Thomas Schriener and Ardel Canaday called THE RACE SET BEFORE US: A BIBLICAL THEOLOGY OF PERSEVERANCE AND ASSURANCE.

On a personal note, this teaching was one reason why I repented of a life style that was unholy and unpleasing to God. I do not doubt that I was saved beforehand, but I do not grasp on to a decision I made then either. I hold on to the promises of God to hold me in His hands and I can see that evidenced in my fruit. When fruit is not displayed in my life I worry about my salvation, but only in the context of praying that God would confirm it by causing me to repent and to obey. Jonathan Edwards also held to this view as he believed that none should base their assurance of salvation on the doctrine of OSAS, but rather should look to their fruit as the assurance that God has worked and continually is working in their lives. I hope that all sides will pick this book up.

It is well worth it and is written by two very well known and appreciated scholars in major institutions.

D.R.

 

dr396, I have been arguing for 'The Race...' position for quite awhile on this board. You will meet objection because people refuse to think.

 

D.R.,

While I am sure that the authors are well-known and respected (I have never heard of them, though), I prefer to base my assurance of salvation on Jesus Christ.

The way I understand it:

God exists outside of time. He made time, and existed before it began. He sees time as a finite thing, thus all time is the same to God. Are you with me?

God, before the creation of the word, had already seen the fall of man, and the need of a Redeemer. He had also already seen who would and who would not accept His offer of redemption. Still with me?

God created the world, and things have moved along just as God had already saw that they would. He already knows who will be saved, right? So, who? Don't know?

Neither do I. Neither does anyone else. God has chosen not to share that information with us. Therefore, we are to share the gospel with everyone in hopes of reaching those who will accept it.

What has all this to do with eternal security? Everything!

Who knows who will be saved? God.
Who paid the price of redemption? God.
Who does the saving? God.
Who does the keeping? God.

God is responsible for it all. Yes, there is free will, but a person's decision is no surprise to God. But for a person to accept Jesus Christ, someone has to share the gospel with them. Too many sit back and say, "Those who will be saved will be, no matter what I do." But God did not commission us to sit on our duffs.

We are to share what Jesus did on the cross for us, for them. But if what He did on the cross is not enough to keep those who accept Him, what good is it? Am I being irreverent? No, I am repeating back my take on what Ron said, and what you said.

God is all-powerful. That includes keeping what is His. And that is all I need to know.

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Trotter said:

You lost me there. I don't see the last part of what you said in Scripture. What I saw was:

Which to me means no man has a predisposition to accept God's offer of salvation (by the way, where does it say that God offers salvation).

There is something basically wrong with this statement, friend. It seems to say that after God created the world, he just sat on his haunches and watched the world move along out of his control. The Bible says he does what he will in the armies of heaven and of earth, he removes and installs kings, promotion comes from him, he sent His only begotten Son to bear the sins of many and to bring them to glory, in other words, He wasn't sitting idly by.

Secondly, I agree that only God knows the names written in the Book of Life, but, He tells us in 2 Peter to make our calling and election sure, that is examine ourselves. And this is not like the command to repent, where there is the command, but we do not have the ability, and he has to enable us first. There is the command to have faith, but we do not have that ability, so he has to enable us faith.

When he commands us to make our calling and election sure, he gave us guidelines for us to know if we do have the call and if we are among the elect. These guidelines are scattered all over his word, from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

Do we love His word ? Do we love the brethren ? Do we share like precious faith of the apostles ? Not only their faith, as in a personal faith, but, also, the same body of faith that they hold ? Do we believe in the deity, humanity, sinlessness, virgin birth, resurrection, and second coming of Christ ? Are we doers of the word and not hearers only ?

I know I am one of the elect because "his Spirit beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God". What I will not do, is to point my finger at somebody, and say, he is not saved, because of his theology, or because he belongs to this creed or that creed.

What we ought to do, is to join a gospel church, love the brethren, respect the elders, obey the rules and disciplines of that church (including dress codes which seems to be a hot topic in this board of supposedly fundamental Christians), immerse ourselves in the word, preach the gospel as good news to the heavily burdened that there is a hope in heaven for sinners.

In Christian love.

 

Trotter,

First of all you borrowed your view of God and time from Augustine, a calvinist. He was the first to propose this. In fact many of those who hold your position reject your view of God and time. Secondly, you say you get your view from Jesus Christ yet you do not quote any Scripture to back this up. What about Jesus' words in John:

35 "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.
36 "But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.
37 "All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
38 "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
39 "This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
40 "For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day."

Now let's look at this text. He is obviously talking about salvation from the standpoint of personal decision. He is contrasting those who believe with those to whom He is speaking. He rebukes them by saying that they do not believe. Why? Because they are not part of the all whom the Father has given Him. Was it their choice in this passage? No. It was the Father's choice. Ultimately they are responsible for their rejection, but their rejection was ordained by God, not as He had previously seen it, but as He had decided it from the Foundation of the world. The emphasis here is not on personal decision, but rather on God's decision.

Third, DD is right in saying that you act as though God is the great watchmaker when in fact He tells His people He acts directly in history. Things don't happen because He has seen them. Things happen because He does them.

Finally Romans 9 and 1 Peter point directly to this.

Romans 9:19-23
19 You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?"
20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?
21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 And {He did so} to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory,

1 Peter 2:7-10:
7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER {stone,}"
8 and, "A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this {doom} they were also appointed.
9 But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR {God's} OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
10 for you once were NOT A PEOPLE, but now you are THE PEOPLE OF GOD; you had NOT RECEIVED MERCY, but now you have RECEIVED MERCY.

You presuppose free will when the Bible presupposes the sovereignty of God. There is much more than can be quoted, but if you are going to get your theology from Jesus recognize that Paul, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Spurgeon, Mohler, and MacArthur did so as well.

D.R.

 

Someone said in an earlier post that we don't sin every day. Granted, there may be days that pass that someone does not sin, however, who can keep the first commandment? I believe that even when I am as close to, and right with, God as possible, I think to myself: "Am I really loving God with ALL of my heart, ALL of my soul, ALL of my mind, and ALL of my strength?" Is it even possible for any length of time???? I'm not proud enough to say that I can do it (OH yea... I guess if you can say you do love God with ALL your being ... then that shows the sin of pride).

Any comments?

 

Does not sin everyday ? Uhhhhmmmm, how come ?
Are there days when he/she is absolutely dead ? Lifeless ? Cannot hear, cannot talk, cannot even think ? We sin everyday, my friend. From the moment we wake up we sin, whether we know it or not, we sin.

1 John 1:8 - If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we say we don't sin every day, then there is a day when we can say, we have no sin.

 

Hey, I'm sorry if I gave the impressions that you two got. Was not my intent.

God is sovereign. Of that I have no doubt. But I do not understand how you got that I was totally free will on this. God is not "sitting on His haunches" as it was so quaintly put.

God is all-knowing. Nothing that anyone says or does catches God off-gaurd, because He already knows. So it stands that He already knows who will accept the offer of salvation. I never said that anyone was predisposed to it, but that God knows who will and who won't.

I never said that God does not take an acive role in this world. You ASSUMED, and you know what they say about ASSUME.

dr396, I did not borrow anything. I came to this conclusion through bible study and reasoning out what my finite mind could of the workings of God. I have never read Augustine, though I would like to (never really had the chance). This is also why I do not list verses to back it up: it is what I have put together.

I still don't get where you got the whole "watchmaker" deal, though. I personally feel that the idea is silly. God made this world, God controls this world. Satan may be the god of the age, but he can go no further than God allows him to go.

I posted here because I believe in the eternal security of the believer. I do not believe that one can be "saved" today and "lost" tomorrow. I believe that God is sovereign, and that He has the power to keep and hold on to that which is His, especially His children. I do not believe that if a person tries to turn his back on God that God will turn His back on him, because Jesus the Son did not go to Calvary to secure a conditional salvation.

I am sorry that I gave the wrong impression. Try finding out next time before you jump on someone with both feet. Try asking some questions first. I have learned this lesson the hard way (and am still learning). OK?

In Christ,
Trotter

 

Dear Deafpost-trib,
I have been reading your posts for sometime now. I'm just wondering what kind of baptist you are?You don't seem to beleive anything that baptists believe.

 

I Peter 3:14-16, “Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”