Loki

I'll play the devil's advocate.

I'm a Catholic refugee, so my viewpoints on Christianity are still very colored by that background. That being said, I was sort of appalled when I first heard of the "Once saved, always saved" concept.

Assuming god is infinite, or otherwise incomprehensible by a finite mind, I believed it impossible to know the mind of god, which includes salvation. I also disbelieved in predestination, which also can have implications on the once saved... idea, though I think that the two concepts arise primarily in different denominations.

Perhaps it was the Catholic guilt thing, but I believed all to be so sinful as to commit sins all the time, and the best we could do was to hope to try to be aware of all our sins. This would imply that even born again people commit sins all the time (though some I've met seem to think otherwise) simply because of human nature.

I think I had some warped idea of salvation being based on desire to put more good into the world than bad, or than you take, which carries with it the full implications of various sins. Of course, both the Catholic and Protestant camps will tell you that salvation is not work based, but rather grace, faith, etc.

And that's as best as I can do playing Devil's Advocate with this much sleep and having to rush off to microbio in 10 minutes

Treacle Worshipper

Seems to me that maybe Hebrews 6:4-6 is the answer. Those verses seem to be saying:
1) It is possible to be saved
2) It is then possible to lose that salvation
3) If you lose your salvation, you can't get it back.
So, to say that those who have "fallen away" never had faith/salvation in the first place (which is a common argument), is false, according to Hebrews.
Also, I couldn't go back even if I wanted to. Excellent, I'll just go get on with my life now then

Other points:
Christian:
Matthew 7:21 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
I was taught that this referred to people who remain in the church but do not actually have faith. To every one else they appear to be Xian, but in their hearts they are not. Therefore, it would not apply to those who fall away.

Argument #5: If a Christian commits the unforgivable sin they will lose their salvation.
Matt 12:31 And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
Nobody seems to know what the unforgivable sin is. I have a friend who worries a lot that she's committed it, but no-one can say whether she has or not, 'cos no-one has a definition of it!

lunachick:
I would like to save, once and for all, people from religious cults.
I'm with you, girl.
TW

Dale Merlin

FWIW:

I was raised a Southern Baptist, and everyone I knew in our church believed in "once saved, always saved." That doctrine was often pointed out as the main difference between Baptists and the rival denomination in my area, the Methodists. Methodists supposedly believed in "the fall from grace," which explained why they were to be tolerated and respected, but not to be looked to for any kind of spiritual example.

Since I was always one to play devil's advocate, I used to ask my Sunday School teachers what would happen to a Christian who murdered someone, or committed some other heinous crime (like taking a drink of alcohol). Would he still be saved, or would he go to hell? The reply I got was always some version of "Oh, a True Christian would never do something like that!"

There are a lot of people with Scots ancestry in that part of the country, but I bet none of them is a True Scotsman.

Angrillori

Sheesh.

To those considering the OSAS nonsense, look at the verbal wrangling they have to do to explain it.

Then, just read the bible.

Hebrews 6:4-6 doesn't need any wrangling. It says that people who were enlightened fall away.

While you're in Hebrews, try 10:26. Whew, seems even after you've come to the knowledge of the truth you can still land in hell!

Try John 15:1-7.
Pretty clearly says that some don't remain in Jesus and Jesus doesn't remain in some.


Just read 'em. All y'alls. And if you've been told you can't lose your salvation once you've got it, consider this:
The bible is very plain about being able to fall away, NO INTERPRETATION neccessary, and someone told you you couldn't. Was that person really looking out for your soul?

But don't take my word for it. Think for yourself. Read the bible. You'll either be right or wrong.

Angrillori

The important word here is can. You CAN only see the kingdom if you're born again. Not you WILL see the kingdom. Notice, it is an ingredient, not a promise.

I CAN see the statue of Liberty if I go to New Yory City. However, based on my other choices, I might not.

As you read through these, in fact god is giving strength, but none of them guarantee that everyone will use it properly. Again, I argue by analogy:
I have the strength to break my pencil but I will not break it. The bible does say god gives believers strength, and he will not test them beyond their ability to persevere, but it does not guarantee a universal perseverance.


God never changes his mind? Talk to Jonah about Nineveh then! And the curse of Jehoachin! And forgiveness in the first place!

There's still nothing here explicitly stating that once anyone is saved they cannot fall away.

And somehow the length of the afterlife prevents people from falling away?
In fact, this says nothing at all about falling away.

I've heard a case made that since 'no one' can snatch believers out of god's hand, the believers themselves can't escape once they're there.

But why, when there are verses explicitly stating you can fall away, would god need to use these kinds of justifications to explain that you can't?

And we return again to god changing his mind. See Jonah. God guaranteed Nineveh's overturn in 40 days (3:4) but then changed his mind. (3:10)

So as long as we know god can change his guarantees, any justification involving the implications of god NOT changing his mind are worthless.

So, some who go to hell weren't christians. This however, once again, says nothing about the ability or lack thereof of christians to fall away.

Conclusion: Scripture itself is correct on the subject.

In other words. What does the bible say. Does it explicitly say that you cannot fall away? No.

Does it explicitly say you can? Yes.

But don't take my word for it. Don't take anyone's word for it. Read the bible. And if you find out you haven't been told the tuth, you've learned a great lesson in learning to question.

(The lesson of course is to question.)

Carrie

Any Christian who believes in "once saved always saved" is not paying attention to the other scriptures that say you CAN lose your salvation:

2 Peter 1:10 - "Be all the more eager to make your calling and election SURE. For IF you DO these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

2 Peter 2:20 - "If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them to not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them."

1 Corinthians 10:1-12 Warnings from Israel's history. "I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud......etc.....and they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert. Now these things occurred as examples, to keep us on setting our hearts on evil things as they did.....We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day 23,000 of them died. We should not test the Lord as some of them did - and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did, and were killed by the destroying angel......So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall!"

1 Tim 4:16 - "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because IF you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." -- If you don't watch your life or you doctrine, then you won't save yourself or your hearers.

Titus 3:10 - Speaking about Christians. "Warn a divisive person once. (A believer who is stirring up controversy). And then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. You may be sure that such a man is warped and sinful; he is self
condemned."

1 Corinthians 5:11 -- Expel the immoral brother!
"I am writing you that you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat." -- So if the Christians were not supposed to associate with such a person, would God associate with them and bring them to eternal fellowship in heaven? I think not. If you get kicked out of the church, your probably also kicked out
of heaven. In Matt 16:19, Jesus told Peter, "whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." Catholics take that to mean that Peter was the leader of the church, and whatever he said, was from God. So the Catholic church had the ability to tell you if you were saved or not, and that's how indulgences came about. You give money, the Catholic church decided you were saved. That's messed up, but you can see where they got this idea - (from scripture).

Hebrews - This epistle was written to Hebrew Christians. Heb. 13:22 ends the letter saying "Brothers, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation"....

Heb 2:1-3 -- "We must pay more careful attention, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. For if the message spoken by angels was binding, and every violation and
disobedience received its just punishment, how shall WE escape if we ignore such a great salvation?

Heb 10:26 -- Speaking to Christians. A Call to Persevere.
"If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we have received knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."

Heb 12:14 --"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God...See to it that no one (no Christian) is sexually immoral, or is godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance...Afterwards, when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears."

Heb 12:25 --"See to it that you (Christians) do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we (Christians) if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven?"

1 Peter 1:17 -- " Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here, in reverent fear." -- So why live in fear if you're once saved
and always saved?

Rev. 3:1-6 -- To the church in Sardis. "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember therefore what you have received and heard; obey it and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. Yet you have A FEW people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. THEY will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, will
be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life."

Rev. 3:16 -- "Because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth....Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent...To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne." (Like Santa)

Mark 3:29 - "Anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." The teachers of the law had said that Jesus was driving out demons by the power of Satan. So Jesus meant that they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit because they were saying that something good was caused by Satan, and not caused by God. So if you say that the stuff Jesus did was actually the work of the devil, then you'll never be saved. We atheists might even be "doomed" if we say that the legacy of Jesus has been bad or evil.


I THINK THIS ALL MAKES IT PRETTY CLEAR THAT YOU CAN IN FACT LOSE YOUR SALVATION. According to the Bible.

** "Once saved always saved" is a FALSE DOCTRINE. 1 Timothy 1:3 says, "Command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer." Verse 7 says, "They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm." -- This and other passages of scripture show that false doctrine is a big deal to God, so those who believe in "ones saved always saved" need to REPENT. Remember, you need to watch you life, AND DOCTRINE closely, and then you can save yourself, and others.

Radorth

Well lets do read the Bible Angrillori.

Well that would be a pretty dumb thing for God to say explicity, particularly to legalists, which I suspect you of being based on long epereince. In any case, he comes close enough for me.

Jesus is tasked with "losing none" or those who come to him. Are you saying he could not have fulfilled that task then?

You are confusing falling away with being eternally cursed. Paul is telling us in Hebrews 6 that it is impossible for us to renew them, but not that it is impossible for God. We know he is talking about what is impossible for his listeners, not God, from vs 1.

Further more, in verse 8, he explicitly says they are NEAR to being cursed, even though "their end is to be burned." We get an enlightening clue from Corinthians, where Paul says a certain man should be "turned over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit might be saved..." He also says a person's works "will be burned up, though he himself will be saved." This is almost exactly the same thing he says in Heb 6, for he says they "bear thorns and thistles" whose end is to be burned. But the ground itself is only "near to being cursed."

And since so few Christians have met the extraordinary qualifiers in vs 4 and 5, I don't worry about those who haven't ever tasted such.

Hebrews 10 is slighty more problematic, however it does not explicitly curse the backslider either. In vs 39 the writer says "but we are not of those who draw back to perdition." Perdition is not necessarily eternal damnation, but more like the "destruction of the flesh" Paul alludes to in Corinthians.

Certainly a Christian who might worry about whether they have permanently fallen away is not a candidate for Heb 10, and would not call the blood of Jesus a "common thing" and trample "the Son of God underfoot" if they were truly saved and had experienced the things Paul listed in Heb 6:4-5.

Is it possible a Christian could permanently fall away? I suppose anything is possible. However as a pastor of mine used to say, "If you're worried about it, you haven't done it." Far as I know, Christians alone ever worry aout it.

Rad

Magus55

Jhn 10:28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any [man] pluck them out of my hand.

Jhn 10:29 My Father, which gave [them] me, is greater than all; and no [man] is able to pluck [them] out of my Father's hand.

Jhn 10:30 I and [my] Father are one.

The only one that could ever take you from God if you were truly saved would be he who is above God, and in Christianity, no such being exists - you can't lose eternal life.

Eph 1:13 In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Eph 1:14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Carrie

Blah blah blah. Yes, Magus and other "once saved always saved"
heretics, there are scriptures that make it sound like you can never lose your salvation! But obviously there are other scriptures that make it sound like you CAN lose your salvation. So which scriptures do you believe? You believe the ones you want to believe and twist around those that you don't want to believe. That way you can SAY you believe all of the scriptures, when in reality, you don't believe the scriptures that you twist, in the way they were meant.

I don't have some scriptures that I want to believe, and other scriptures that I twist around to fit what I want to believe. I don't believe any of it, so I can look at the Bible more objectively.

What I think is that the Bible is a man-made book, and that's why it is confusing. In one scripture it seems to say that you can never lose your salvation, and in another it seems to say you can. Typical of the Bible. Contradicts itself a lot. I know you don't like to think that it does, so you try to come up with all kinds of fancy explanations. But if you just read it simply, you'll see that no fancy explanation is needed. It says what it says. The NT is a compilation of a lot of separate letters, so of course they are not all going to match up perfectly. Look at ALL of the Bible, and don't just focus on the scriptures that you like. You cling to those and ignore the others. If you take them all under equal consideration, and try to make sense of it, you'll be confused, and determine, like all rational people, that the Bible is not a book that makes sense.

Why would God give us such a confusing book? Why couldn't He make something as important as salvation just a little more clear? If He did write the Bible, then He's a terrible writer, and a terrible God for allowing so many people to be so easily confused!

Magus55

Actually, none of your verse quotes mean you can lose your salvation.

For example:

2 Peter 1:10 - "Be all the more eager to make your calling and election SURE. For IF you DO these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

Your calling to be saved is from God, make it sure by having faith in Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, and if you do have such faith, you will never lose salvation. Once you do the things of faith, you are secure.



1 Tim 4:16 - "Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because IF you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers." -- If you don't watch your life or you doctrine, then you won't save yourself or your hearers.


Here, its discussing being a good example to believers and unbelievers alike. WATCH your life and doctrine, so that you are an example to the world of Jesus Christ and by producing good fruits and following Jesus' example, its a sign of your salvation and can bring others to Jesus as well. If your life isn't filled with Jesus and his teachings, then you aren't saved and you aren't witnessing to anyone to come to Jesus.