Greetings throughfaith!
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"Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds because of your evil deeds. But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence—
if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature
e under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
"But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are His house,
if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast.
"We have come to share in Christ
if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first. "
"Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, and in which you stand firm. By this gospel you are saved,
if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
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In all of the scriptures above, notice that our salvation is conditional upon continuing in faith as demonstrated by the use of the word "if" And rightly so, because scripture states that we are saved by grace through faith.
* We have been reconciled and will be presented holy, unblemished and blameless
'if' we continue in faith, established and firm.
* We are Christ's house
'if' we hold firmly to our confidence and our hope
* We have come to share in Christ,
if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.
* By this gospel you are saved,
if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
What happens when a believer stops having faith?
"My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, consider this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover over a multitude of sins."
In the scripture above, it is obvious that James is addressing believers by referring to them as 'My brothers.' In order to wander away from the truth, one would already have to have been in the truth. The wandered state is speaking about apostasy, i.e. going back to willfully living according to the sinful nature. Apostasy is not to be confused with the sins that we commit in our walk in Christ. Notice that while in that state of apostasy the person will have been accumulating sin and on his way to death. We also have other scriptures demonstrating our need to continue in faith as the requirement salvation.
"But suppose
that servant is wicked and says in his heart, ‘
My master will be away a long time.’ And he begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.
The master of that servant will come on a day he does not expect and at an hour he does not anticipate. Then he will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The reference to that servant "beating his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards," is referring to the believer who apostatizes by turning back and willfully living according to the sinful nature. I emboldened the words "servant" and "my master" for those who would attempt to say, "well then, he was never a true believe." The scripture above is speaking about a true servant who apostatizes. We have other examples as well:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the keeper of the vineyard.
He cuts off every branch in Me that bears no fruit, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes to make it even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. Just as no branch can bear fruit by itself unless it remains in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.
I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.
If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers. Such branches are gathered up, thrown into the fire, and burned.
I would remind those reading, that Jesus is speaking to His disciples as well as to all believers. The fruit that Jesus is referring to is our taking on the nature of God more and more as we continue going from faith to faith. It is synonymous with our being transformed into the image of Christ and the sanctification of the Spirit which is the process of our being made holy. Therefore, if we stop having faith, then we are no longer bearing fruit and we are no longer being transformed into the image of Christ. Regarding fruitfulness, Jesus said "some bring forth some thirty, some sixty and some a hundred fold. We all have different degrees of fruitfulness. All we need to be doing is moving forward in fruitfulness, which is accomplished by continuing from faith to faith.
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