Look at the bold underline in your quote.
Those who believe in Him will not perish and will receive eternal life.
Those who no longer believe in Him will perish and not receive eternal life.
That's why the Bible tells us to hold fast the gospel by which we were saved.
Because you can't remain in the safety of a gospel that you no longer believe and trust in.
Those who
believe in Him will not perish and will receive eternal life.
Those who
do not believe in Him will perish and not receive eternal life.
There. I fixed it for you and the Roman Catholic church.
John 3:18 - He who
believes in Him is not condemned; but he who
does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. *Perfect Harmony*
*Notice that John DID NOT SAY
no longer believes in Him. That is your extra added bias.
The Bible tells us to hold fast to the gospel because not everyone does hold fast and instead
believes in vain - without cause or without effect, to no purpose. Those who profess to have believed, but no longer believe never truly believed in the first place (belief was never firmly rooted and established) or else they would have continued to believe. It's about God's preservation and not self preservation.
"let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father." - 1 John 2:25
Abiding in what we have heard from the beginning is the
mark of genuine conversion. 1 John 2:19 is really a key verse, "They
went out from us, they were
not really of us. If they
had been of us they would have...what?
...would have remained with us." True Christians then are identified by abiding. And if someone doesn't, if they go out, reject, deny, they went out
because they were not of us, if they
had been of us they would have remained with us. Remaining, staying, abiding is the mark of a genuine believer. Some people turn "abiding in Christ" into some upper level spiritual experience that only super saints do, yet the Greek word for "abide" is "meno" which simply means to remain, tarry, not to depart, continue to be present.
Verse 24, "As for you, let that remain in you which you heard from the beginning...if what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you will also remain in the Son and the Father." We see confirmation and then down in verse 27 - But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.
*In 1 John 4:13, we read -
By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.