How is what you listed (new creation, having eternal life, being dead/alive) following Christ?
He changes our heart to desire His ways. We love Him because He loved us first.
How is what you listed (new creation, having eternal life, being dead/alive) following Christ?
I left CARM about 15 years ago because I was fed-up to the back teeth with all this. In the intervening years my worst fears have been confirmed. I can only suggest you heed the warnings of the apostles, and stop accusing the early Christians of not being saved. Many died for the sake of the Gospel, and your false cult has the impudence to accuse them of not believing. The Lord will not love those who accuse His children of not believing in him.
Fear and bondage to IN-security is no way to live the Christian life!
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I'm in agreement with you.To save souls from hell, if possible. OSAS believe they can sin all they want and still go to heaven, but you must obey God in order to go to heaven. I will never give up trying to save them with truth- just like Noah tried right up until they entered the ark.
He changes our heart to desire His ways. We love Him because He loved us first.
All these topics have been debated since Christ. Hundreds of books have been written, besides which the answers are in the Bible, but for some reason, people who in the main haven't had the teaching, think they have all the answers. The result is that error is compounded with error.
Your initial response implied that a person doesn't have to follow Christ; only a changed nature is required. If a person with a changed nature desires Christ's ways, yet doesn't follow him for whatever reason is he saved?
No, that is what I am not doing. What I am doing is to warn people about the danger of committing apostasy."The Lord will not love those who accuse His children of not believing in him."
Isn't this EXACTLY what you're doing?
No, that is what I am not doing. What I am doing is to warn people about the danger of committing apostasy.
Now then think about it. If someone believes they are ALWAYS saved, they may think they can do as they like and still be saved. You do know I presume what the Bible teaches about departing from the path of righteousness?
A changed nature leads to following Him. Our original design was to follow Him, but the lies of the enemy deceived us. But Christ sets us free and God's ways are best. God changes our heart and over time our behavior follows suit. There is a process of discipleship in this, which is why Paul kept writing letters to people who were saved wondering why they were struggling following Him.
Believing is the first step and following Him is the next step. In reality the two go together and as a result people begin to see a change in our life as evidenced by our works. This is the outward indication of an inward change.
Suppose our life does not change due to those who teach that if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ we are ALWAYS saved, what do you think their end will be?
Grace is what God does for us. Paul knew all about grace, in fact you quote him, but do you think Paul sat back, thinking to himself, "Thanks to the grace of God I am always saved," and carried on as he always had done. Heaven forbid, his work for God had only just begun and while witnessing to unbelievers across the known world, he was encouraging believers to:-Grace is scandalous isn't it. This was exactly what Paul expected from people when he explained grace. Here's his answer:
Romans 6:1What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
You asking that question means you have more to learn about grace. You think FEAR is what causes people to follow Jesus? It is love that causes people to follow Love. Why do you seek to neuter the power that set's men free?
Religion's logic: You need to fear you can lose your eternal security so that you will continue to keep faith in Jesus for your eternal security.
You asking that question means you have more to learn about grace. You think FEAR is what causes people to follow Jesus? It is love that causes people to follow Love. Why do you seek to neuter the power that set's men free?
You missed this one and I find it interesting that the term 'fall away' was used by Jesus Christ of His 11 disciples at the time He was being arrested. The disciples deserted Jesus as was predicted and Peter obviously denied Jesus three times. They were said to 'fall away'. (see Matthew 21:31-35) Obviously, this is not a loss of salvation.I have just done a quick search on fell away, fallen away, fall away, abandoned as in abandoned their faith, turned away.
I've heard three different interpretations for this passage - lost salvation, never saved, hypothetical view.This doesn't fit that criteria:
For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. (Heb 6:4-6 KJV)
Who said these people were "saved" and "lost their salvation?" I've witnessed this for myself, in which "nominal" Christians leave a church that teaches sound doctrine, only to follow after teachers who tell them what their itching ears want to hear.Neither does this, but they are both concerning:
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
Obviously you believe they must have been true Christians for it says they were enlightened, tasted the word of God, and had partook of the Holy Spirit. But all these words can still be true the unsaved individual who has come to a knowledge of the truth, seen the power of the Holy Spirit, and felt the convicting and drawing of the Holy Spirit in their life. Judas Iscariot was an extreme example of this! He knew all there was to know been in the company of Jesus for three years. He had experienced the Holy Spirit’s power having been among the twelve sent out, two by two, to cast out demons and heal the sick. Yet he was never truly saved! Jesus own testimony about him confirms that he was not a true sheep that would be kept safe to the end. (John 17:11-12, John 13:18) but was a devil! (John 6:70). None of the key words for truly saved individuals such as ‘saving faith’, ‘eternal life’, ‘born again’, ‘redeemed by his blood’, ’saved’, ’salvation’ are used in this passage. In ‘Hebrews verse by verse’, William Newell quotes R.A Torrey on this passage saying ‘there is a quickening short of regeneration’. In other words, this passage speaks of the work of the Holy Spirit within the lives of these people that occurs before and leading up to salvation. But these people do not receive salvation, and openly rejecting it, they go back to the mud even if for a while they looked like the real thing.Other verses that speak of the perils that beset us are:
Heb_6:6 If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.
Mar_4:15Luke 8:12 - Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved. *There was no loss of salvation here. Only a failure to receive it.And these are they by the way side, where the word is sown; but when they have heard, Satan cometh immediately, and taketh away the word that was sown in their hearts.
Luk_9:25All the honors, riches, and pleasures of this life will be of no use or service to such a person in the end if he himself is lost.For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
1Ti 1:19 Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:
Yet we don't see the specific words, "lost salvation" in the context of 1 Timothy 1:19. Also, in 1 Timothy 1:20, we read - Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme. Where have we heard that before?
*In 1 Corinthians 5:1-5, we read about a man who has committed sexual immorality by having his father's wife (does that sound like shipwrecked faith? Was it permanent?), yet verse 5 says deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. If Hymenaeus and Alexander were truly saved, then how do we know the outcome was not the same for them as it was the adulterer in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 who later repented in 2 Corinthians chapter 2? Nothing is mentioned about him "losing his salvation" either.
Proverbs 24:16 - For a righteous man may fall seven times And rise again, But the wicked shall fall by calamity.
2Ti_4:4This happens all the time with "nominal" Christians, who temporarily attend a Christian church and hear the truth, but later join a false religion or cult. The Mormon church for example is full of fables.And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
Heb_12:25What do we read about such people earlier in the chapter? Hebrews 12:15 - See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. The NIV says ..falls short of the grace of God and the ESV says ..fails to obtain the grace of God.See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven:
2Pe_3:17As I already explained in post #1,028 - To be "led away" in 2 Peter 3:17 has the same meaning as with Barnabas being "carried away" with the dissimulation of Peter and his associates in Galatians 2:13. Nothing is mentioned there either about anyone losing their salvation. The words "lost or lose salvation" are nowhere found in the Bible.Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness.
As the Pulpit Commentary points out - Beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness; rather, as in the Revised Version, lest, being carried away... ye fall. It is interesting to notice that the word rendered "led or carried away" is used by St. Paul, in Galatians 2:13, of St. Barnabas, who, along with St. Peter himself, was then "carried away" with the dissimulation of the Judaizers. The word rendered "wicked," rather "lawless," is used elsewhere in the New Testament only in chapter 2 Peter 2:7. The word for "steadfastness" (στηριγμός) occurs only here.
Rev_22:19This is not descriptive of those who are truly born of God, but of false teachers.And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
It means not once saved always saved.I care. You need to tell me what NOSAS is.
Grace is what God does for us. Paul knew all about grace, in fact you quote him, but do you think Paul sat back, thinking to himself, "Thanks to the grace of God I am always saved," and carried on as he always had done. Heaven forbid, his work for God had only just begun and while witnessing to unbelievers across the known world, he was encouraging believers to:-
press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. (Php 3:13-15 KJV)
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. (1Co 9:24 KJV)
lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:1-2 KJV)
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway. (1Co 9:24-27 KJV)
Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.
(Php 2:16 KJV)
There's bad fear and there's good and essential fear.
Religion puts people under fear with condemnation and judgment as a matter of course in order to keep them from following the spirit and being free from its control.
One of the spirits of GOD is the fear of YHWH that if we follow keeps us from following a lifted up mind and a deceitful heart that can lead us astray from eternal life if we don't seek GOD's mercy.