I believe in eternal security but only in the church age.
Now, the quoted statement, though potentially sound, is not true because it stems from an ignorance of how salvation works.
Getting saved is spoken of as a spiritual birth in the Bible. If a man has at some point in his life approached God as a guilty sinner and in his heart trusted nothing but the righteousness of Jesus Christ to justify him AT THAT MOMENT, then he was born again. The fact that he later got his doctrine messed up cannot disannul his earlier spiritual birth.
The problem is guys who never, AT ANY MOMENT, ever trusted only the righteousness of Christ to justify them. Those guys would be lost.
I think one can be saved without believing in eternal security. I think the doctrine of eternal security and the definite endurance of the saints can be a help not to fall into trusting in works, but I do not think it is necessary to believe it in order to not trust in works or one’s own righteousness. I think when one runs into heresy is that if they say that the blood of Christ is not sufficient to cover the sins of those who fall away for a time. Peter fell away for a time, but he did not loose his salvation. The truly saved can neither totally nor finally fall away. Peter neither totally nor finally fell away. He just fell away for a time, but it is not a requisite to salvation to believe this doctrine of the definite endurance of the saved, that once one is saved they can neither totally nor finally fall away, and consequently cannot loose their salvation.
It has? Adam was saved by faith in Jesus Christ? Noah? Phineas? The Jews under the law?
Did the apostles know that salvation was through faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ in the gospels?
Do you have verses to answer the above in the positive? Because the apostles sure were confused when Christ spoke of his death, let alone his resurrection.
No one denies that ultimately, it's the grace of God that saves a man, and the blood of Christ which allows his soul out of prison, but to declare that men under the law were saved by grace through faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ ("looking forward to the cross") is a whole different story.
Gen 3:15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
A) Where in the verse did God address Adam?
B) Where in the verse did the word "Messiah" appear?
C) Granting the above two, where in the verse does God say that the Messiah would bring redemption?
D) Where in the verse does God mention "his people"?
Don't insert your own 20/20 rear-view into the words.
Interesting replies, everyone. Thanks for your input so far.
I would add, I do believe that eternal security has Old Testament roots, in the form of God's relation to Israel. When God wanted to destroy Israel at Sinai for their rebellion and start over with Moses, Moses interceded for them and asked God not to destroy them because of the covenants sake.
I believe OT souls were saved in the same way as we are today. In short, believing God.
"Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness".
Of course, they didn't fully understand the sacrificial atonement of the future Messiah. But the important thing is, they believed God, and righteousness was imputed to them.
This is the root of the gospel, I believe. 1 John 5:10 says "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son."
I think it could be said of us Christians the exact thing which was said of Abraham. By believing in Christ, thus believing the "record that God gave of his Son", we are Believing God, and receiving imputed righteousness.
God imputed righteousness unto Phinehas under the law for a work: Psa 106:30
Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: and so the plague was stayed.
Psa 106:31
And that was counted unto him for righteousness unto all generations for evermore.
That's what the words of God say.
Paul explicitly told us that the law is not of faith (Gal.3:12) and then quoted Moses in Leviticus 18:5, twice, The man that doeth them shall live in them (Gal.3:12, Rom.10:5).