For those still wresting with Once saved always saved here you go... If you are saved by works, whether that is entirely your own effort or your effort plus Gods efforts, then you can lose your salvation. If you are saved only by Gods effort, i.e., Christs atoning death at the cross, as an act of grace accepted by faith, then you can not lose your salvation. No one can snatch them from my Fathers hands. Salvation is not a question of my actions but of Gods faithfulness. This is a simple statement of the doctrines of grace which is expanded in saved by grace through faith, live by grace through faith (and not the law), kept by grace through faith, persevering to the end by grace through faith and other similar statements. These two means of salvation, (1) by works or a combination of my works and Gods, or (2) entirely by Gods grace through my faith/reliance on it, are mutually exclusive and clarify a lot of fuzzy thinking. You have to make a choice between them and follow your choice out to its conclusion. - I believe, in spite of centuries of efforts to argue otherwise, that the Bible teaches only salvation by grace through faith and not of works. We are sinners, born in the fallen Adam who do not possess the ability to offer anything to God for our salvation. God does all the saving work (grace) and we can only accept it (faith). God, then, transfers us from Adam to Christ, in which condition we have the indwelling Holy Spirit who convicts and guides. - this has many correlations, of which I offer two here: (1) we do not regulate our spiritual life by the law of Moses or any other law; this is the Galatian heresy and the judaizing problem that plagued the first century church; it is the Holy Spirit that makes us holy, and, that is measured not by the law but by the fruit of the Spirit; certainly, such a person will be observed to keep some of Moses law or other laws but this is entirely incidental - (2) we, as humans with limited ability to discern the hearts of others, and even our own hearts, will always have difficulty discerning who is a true believer or not; we have no other way to know than by comparing a persons deeds to their words; but this is a test and a human one at that; the doctrines of grace are statements from Gods point of view and He has perfect knowledge of every heart; for us, we must be gracious but not foolish in trying to use our imperfect test to discern the hearts of others through their deeds; that means we do not change our doctrine of salvation to explain problems in discipleship; it means we challenge one another, graciously, kindly, but firmly as needed; and it means the question is not whether someone keeps moving in and out of salvation but (a) whether they were truly saved in the first place, and (b) accepting that even the most normal and expected path of spiritual growth into the character of Christ has ups and downs, progress and regress and digress, all within a truly saved persons life - This means, finally, that salvation, again, is not about our activity but about Gods activity and character. And here is the danger Paul warns us all about in Galatians 1, and the author of Hebrews warns about repeatedly: saying we can lose our salvation denies Gods faithfulness, saying we contribute to our salvation denies the ultimate value of Christs sacrifice
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 19:27:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015