It Is satanic Heresy to Deny Eternal Security
- Thread starter Atwood
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Originally Posted by Atwood
SeaBass, Calvin is irrelevant; it is the Word of God that is relevant. You may as well accuse anyone who teaches the Trinity to be promoting Calvinism, since Calvin believed in the Trinity.
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
I am glad to see that you are looking at the scripture Seabass.
Where does this verse say anything about free will and choosing to quit believing? No where. You are making things up.
It clearly says that the one who is currently believing knows he has eternal life! He doesn't think that possibly he will attain to eternal life if this or if that. He knows he has eternal life, no ifs and or buts.
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Paul addresses the Philippians in general. He says the is thankful for their fellowship in the furtherance of gospel. Then he says as quoted, "I am sure of this" namely of their final salvation. There is no statement of contingency as if salvation were by works -- which it is not.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
But I commend you for looking at the texts. Let the Word of God dwell in you richly. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. Read and conclude how you are convicted by the Spirit.
The verb 'beleive' in the verse is present tense, active voice.
The present tense shows a sustained action, eternal life is for those that continue believe. Eternal security ignore the present tense says one can quit believing yet still be saved.
The active voice shows the subject does the action of believing, he chooses for himself to believe and is not passively forced to believe against his own will by someone external to him.
Had the Philippians fell away/removed from the gospel, as the Galatians (Gal 1:6ff), then the Philippian Christians would have been lost/fallen from grace just as the Galatians and Paul would not have confidence in God continuing that good work in those that do not continue in the gospel. Eternal security has nothing to do with it, ES is not even in the context.
Originally Posted by Atwood
Read the word carefully Cassian. I don't ask you or anyone to believe something because I say it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
How does the Spirit convict you?
John 10:28
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 5:24
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent mehas eternal life
Well Cassian, that is a good post. ITA.
Christ's sheep (Jn 10:27) will NEVER perish even if they quit hearing and following Christ?
"If" shows conditions not uncondtional as eternal security, there is no 'if' with ES
Eph 1:13 church at Ephesus sealed
Rev 2:1-7 church at Ephesus left it's first love, fallen and would be removed if they did not obey Christ's command to repent.
The prodigal son spent his money on harlots yet some say he maintained his salvation while doing so...go figure.
The group Christian/Saint is preserved but not the individual is not unconditionally preserved separate and apart from this group. So if I fall from this preserved GROUP, I will no longer be preserved/saved.
SeaBass,
The jailer was only commanded to believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Nothing else. It is an offer of salvation from God via prophet Paul. Nothing else can be essential on man's part for salvation. If A, then B.
Why should anyone be so heavily invested in denying that Christ saves? He is the Savior. We (if we trust him) are the savees.
This offer of salvation / justification just for trusting the Savior is repeated over and over again. Neither you nor I could merit salvation by works. We find ourselves depraved sinners. We must have a Savior.
For by grace you have been saved THROUGH FAITH, and that not of yourselves, not of works lest anyone should boast.,
End of Rom 8:
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. For whom
he foreknew,
he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom
he foreordained, them
he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom
he justified, them
he also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God who justifies;
who is he who condemns?
It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it is written,
For thy sake we are killed all the day long;
We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith to a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
The Lord does not forsake his saints. Therefore, if you are a saint, you are not forsaken. When you are a saint, you have the promise of not being forsaken. You make up something not in the text. You postulate that a saint is not preserved, but the Word says that he is. You twist the words to deny preservation. If you are preserved forever, you cannot be unpreserved.
Christians have "an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
Example of preservation:
Luke 22: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I made supplication for thee, that thy faith fail not;
SeaBass,
Doctrine is not proven by parables, but by propositional teaching. Also, it is an interpretive error to try to make a parable go on all fours. It is an error to try to allegorize all the details.
The Word is so clear. We must drop our self-righteous fantasies that we are able to get to Heaven by our works. There is none that doeth good, no not one. All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
Rom 6:23b
the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
John 10:27-29
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
John 6:37
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
John 10:28
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
It just amazes me that one can continue to use texts that speak against the very view they are trying to support.
I Pet 1:3-4 is a promise that God's promise of eternal life will never change, it is there eternally awaiting.
Why would it be awaiting when your whole theory is based on that they have already received it way back when they first believed.
then the second phrase clearly states that respective of man, God's power ONLY works through HIS FAITH. So, man is the determinate factor in whether one will actually receive eternal life or not. We know from loads of scripture that man can lose faith. How can God's power work to save when He has no faith to work with?
A person who loses faith is no longer a believer and does not quality in all of those texts that you constantly recite that are written in the present tense, active and continuing. Clearly a believer who loses faith, IS NOT A BELIEVER ANY LONGER.
What is so difficult to understand?
Feedm, I mulled this over a bit more.
He who believes on the Son has eternal life; but
he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.
One wonders why the change of words in the antithetical parallel from
believes to "does not obey." One might have expected "does not believe."
The words are clear without figuring out why the Lord said it that way. But the best explanation I can think of is this:
1) Believing on the Lord Jesus gives the believer eternal life.
2) Disbelieving is not the cause of God's wrath on the sinner.
The cause of God's wrath is the sinner's sin (disobedience), not precisely failure to trust Christ as Savior.
People have asked, "You mean people go to Hell for not believing in Jesus?"
My answer is that the cause of going to the Lake of Fire is your sin (disobedience) .
The wages of sin is death. The Lake of Fire is the 2nd death.
To be sure, faith in the Lord Jesus is the only escape.
which is why he can use it because the doctrine has long been established elsewhere in scripture and these parables, just as Jesus stated are all as the Kingdom. He starts most of them as "The Kingdom is like...... The Kingdom is the Body of Christ.
which is a complete strawman and a gross mischaracterization of a believer attaining eternal life.
It is a gift in which we are required to participate in, it is an obligation, a requirement, a duty, a necessity. It is why man was created, to participate with God in this created order.
to verbs that require continuation. If not continued then obviously the text does not apply to those.
Why would He cast them out, when He actually desires that all men come to know Him. But God cannot force man's will. Man is free to come and go as he desires. See the story of Adam again. Did God cast Him out? Or did Adam sin and separated himself from God?
Does it help to repeat it, and repeat it out of context as well. It does not change anything.
Thank you for your judgment of me as if you are a judge, and I make none judgement of you, for I know this to be true from God to all mankind:, and by your post it shows to me, you are judging me, and if so okay that is on you not me, God bless
Romans 14:4 Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.
Atwood:
You say "God's power ONLY works through HIS FAITH." That suggests a possible interpretation, that the power is through God's faithfulness (taking pistis for faithfulness, a possible translation). God's faithfulness changes not. Adding the word "only" is unwarranted from the text, however.
The fact stated is that by the power of God the Christian is guarded unto salvation. If the means is specified, "through faith," that does not change the fact one bit. When the Lord does something, He may not only fix the result, but also fix his method of accomplishing it. But the method doesn't change the fact.
You just say this. Kindly do not make things up. Where is any verse that says that once a man trusts the Lord Jesus with his eternal destiny, that man may stop trusting the Lord Jesus to save Him from damnation? But regardless of this, scripture is clear that one who trusts Christ in the present has future eternal security in salvation.
What is so difficult to understand about the over and over promises of God? Pray for the eye salve of Revelation 3. On your understanding all the promises and assurances are meaningless. But the promise is that if one NOW in the present tense trusts Christ as Savior, one receives NOW eternal life.
2 thes 2:16-17
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Here the gift was received in the past, but the gift was an eternal gift.
" I give [present time] them eternal life, and they will never perish [extends forever into the future],
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes [present time] him who sent me has [present time] eternal life. He does not come [in the future] into judgment, but has passed [when he believed] from death to life.
1 John 5:13
I write these things to you who believe [present time] in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have [present time] eternal life [extends into eternal future].
Philippians 1:6
And I am sure of this, that he who began [past time, began when born again]a good work in you will [future time] bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
then the second phrase clearly states that respective of man, God's power ONLY [sic] works through HIS FAITH. So, man is the determinate factor in whether one will actually receive eternal life or not.[/quote]
You say "God's power ONLY works through HIS FAITH." That suggests a possible interpretation, that the power is through God's faithfulness (taking pistis for faithfulness, a possible translation). God's faithfulness changes not. Adding the word "only" is unwarranted from the text, however.
The fact stated is that by the power of God the Christian is guarded unto salvation. If the means is specified, "through faith," that does not change the fact one bit. When the Lord does something, He may not only fix the result, but also fix his method of accomplishing it. But the method doesn't change the fact.
You just say this. Kindly do not make things up. Where is any verse that says that once a man trusts the Lord Jesus with his eternal destiny, that man may stop trusting the Lord Jesus to save Him from damnation? But regardless of this, scripture is clear that one who trusts Christ in the present has future eternal security in salvation.
What is so difficult to understand about the over and over promises of God? Pray for the eye salve of Revelation 3. On your understanding all the promises and assurances are meaningless. But the promise is that if one NOW in the present tense trusts Christ as Savior, one receives NOW eternal life.
2 thes 2:16-17
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
Here the gift was received in the past, but the gift was an eternal gift.
" I give [present time] them eternal life, and they will never perish [extends forever into the future],
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes [present time] him who sent me has [present time] eternal life. He does not come [in the future] into judgment, but has passed [when he believed] from death to life.
1 John 5:13
I write these things to you who believe [present time] in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have [present time] eternal life [extends into eternal future].
Philippians 1:6
And I am sure of this, that he who began [past time, began when born again]a good work in you will [future time] bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
To be honest you can find Scriptures to support either view what comes do to even though slip up from time time we are all called to renewed day by day into his image and press toward the high calling that Christ set before the us. Personally from my study I come on the side not of once saved always saved, but in the end God is the judge to those justified in Christ. Keep pressing on toward the high calling.