Guest shiloh357 Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Fellowship with God and salvation go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Your either Gods friend or his enemy. He has fellowship with his friends not his enemies. In the end, his friends are saved from eternal judgement not his enemies. 1 John 1 contains the 'message'. The good news that God has made a way for man and God to be united in fellowship that is eternal life. People can be saved and be out of fellowship with God. Being out of fellowship doesn't mean that a person is not saved. Salvation is not fellowship. Those are not synonomous terms. People fall out of fellowship when they don't keep their prayer life up, or they stop going to church, particularly in times of discouragement. A person can fall out of fellowship, but that doesn't mean they have lost salvation or that God has discarded them. Fortunately God is not as capricious and fickle as we are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexanderJ Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 195 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 24 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 03/25/1993 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Fellowship with God and salvation go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Your either Gods friend or his enemy. He has fellowship with his friends not his enemies. In the end, his friends are saved from eternal judgement not his enemies. 1 John 1 contains the 'message'. The good news that God has made a way for man and God to be united in fellowship that is eternal life. People can be saved and be out of fellowship with God. Being out of fellowship doesn't mean that a person is not saved. Salvation is not fellowship. Those are not synonomous terms. People fall out of fellowship when they don't keep their prayer life up, or they stop going to church, particularly in times of discouragement. A person can fall out of fellowship, but that doesn't mean they have lost salvation or that God has discarded them. Fortunately God is not as capricious and fickle as we are. Masterfully written! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexanderJ Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 195 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 24 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 03/25/1993 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Constable has a lot of good things to say on this subject in his Notes on 1 John: http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes/pdf/1john.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdemoss Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Royal Member Followers: 8 Topic Count: 59 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 4,402 Content Per Day: 0.98 Reputation: 2,154 Days Won: 28 Joined: 02/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/26/1971 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Fellowship with God and salvation go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Your either Gods friend or his enemy. He has fellowship with his friends not his enemies. In the end, his friends are saved from eternal judgement not his enemies. 1 John 1 contains the 'message'. The good news that God has made a way for man and God to be united in fellowship that is eternal life. People can be saved and be out of fellowship with God. Being out of fellowship doesn't mean that a person is not saved. Salvation is not fellowship. Those are not synonomous terms. People fall out of fellowship when they don't keep their prayer life up, or they stop going to church, particularly in times of discouragement. A person can fall out of fellowship, but that doesn't mean they have lost salvation or that God has discarded them. Fortunately God is not as capricious and fickle as we are. I would expect no less a defense from you. I understand what you believe. I know many who believe as you do. I am simply not one of them. Agree to disagree with you. I will simply choose to maintain my fellowship with God as directed. You can do what you wish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexanderJ Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 195 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 24 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 03/25/1993 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Fellowship is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English as: "friendly association, especially with people who share one’s interests". If I sinned against my earthly father and continued for a time in unrepentance, I would have broken fellowship with him. In breaking fellowship with him, I do not cease to be his son nor does he cease to be my father. It is in the same way that a believer can break fellowship with God. This, though broken fellowship with God is an extremely undesirable state, it does not infer the loss or absence of salvation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexanderJ Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Advanced Member Followers: 1 Topic Count: 8 Topics Per Day: 0.00 Content Count: 195 Content Per Day: 0.04 Reputation: 24 Days Won: 0 Joined: 06/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 03/25/1993 Share Posted December 21, 2012 (edited) I will simply choose to maintain my fellowship with God as directed. You can do what you wish. That statement is unfair. We are not arguing the fact that being "in fellowship" is a state that God wants us to be in; we are simply saying that because of the flesh, a believer sometimes sins and falls out of that fellowship temporarilly. A good example of this is when David sinned with Bathsheba. He went for about a year in unrepented sin - he had broken fellowship with God. Edited December 21, 2012 by AlexanderJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shiloh357 Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Keep in mind we are discussing I Jn.1:7-10. John was, of course writing to Christians. John said: "if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sinns, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Question: If the one to whom John writes does not confess his sin, will he enter heaven? Yes, because confession of sin is not a pre-condition to enter heaven, nor is it a means of maintaining salvation. In fact, you will not that confession of sin to God is not mentioned in any of Paul's epistles. It is mentioned only ONCE to Christians and the context has nothing to do with how to get to heaven or to stay saved. Question: If the one to whom John writes does not confess his sin, and unconfessed sin remains unforgiven, will one with unforgiven sins (because not confessed) go to heaven? Yes. Because if confession of sin is necessary for salvation, you have added works to grace and now salvation ceases being a free gift. If confession of sin is necessary for salvation, salvation becomes conditional on your behavior and personal effort. Question: If the one to whom John writes does not confess his sin, he is not cleansed from "unrighteousness". Will one not cleansed from unrighteousness enter heaven? Yes, because it is conscience not his spirit that is cleansed. This is not a re-saving, but cleansing of the conscience from guilt, shame and condemnation, not a cleansing from sin. "Sin" and "unrighteousness" are not synonomous terms. Question: If as you so correctly point out ''CONFESSION OF SIN PERTAINS TO MAINTAINING FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD" then will the one to whom John writes who does not confess his sins and therefore has no longer fellowship with God enter heaven? Yes, because lack of fellowship doesn't mean lack of relationship. That a person is not in fellowship with God for whatever reason doesn't mean that person is not saved. None of us can claim that we are in fellowship with God 100% of the time. Read Isa.59:1,2 for the condition of any whose sins separate him from God. But that is referencing a different issue and different context. Our sin DID separate us from God when we were unbelievers. Jesus repaired that breach when we gave our lives to Him. That is a separate issue from fellowship with God. If Salvation depended on being in fellowship with God 100% of the time, the cross of Jesus was a waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest shiloh357 Posted December 21, 2012 Share Posted December 21, 2012 Fellowship with God and salvation go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other. Your either Gods friend or his enemy. He has fellowship with his friends not his enemies. In the end, his friends are saved from eternal judgement not his enemies. 1 John 1 contains the 'message'. The good news that God has made a way for man and God to be united in fellowship that is eternal life. People can be saved and be out of fellowship with God. Being out of fellowship doesn't mean that a person is not saved. Salvation is not fellowship. Those are not synonomous terms. People fall out of fellowship when they don't keep their prayer life up, or they stop going to church, particularly in times of discouragement. A person can fall out of fellowship, but that doesn't mean they have lost salvation or that God has discarded them. Fortunately God is not as capricious and fickle as we are. I would expect no less a defense from you. I understand what you believe. I know many who believe as you do. I am simply not one of them. Agree to disagree with you. I will simply choose to maintain my fellowship with God as directed. You can do what you wish. What is it that I believe that you don't??? I am interested in seeing if you actually do understand what I believe as you claim. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enoob57 Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Worthy Ministers Followers: 35 Topic Count: 100 Topics Per Day: 0.02 Content Count: 41,338 Content Per Day: 7.99 Reputation: 21,534 Days Won: 76 Joined: 03/13/2010 Status: Offline Birthday: 07/27/1957 Share Posted December 21, 2012 What is the 'sin that leads to death' in 1 John 5:16? He does not have “kinds of sinning” in mind. Rather, it is degrees of habituality and stubborn persistence. It refers to the person who has become so irrtreivably wicked. that the “Esau” factor comes in from Hebrews 12: 16-17 where Esau sinned against God’s benefits so relentlessly that finally God said, “It’s over.” The sin that leads to death is stubborn, continued unrepentance that eventually crosses the line where God no longer strives with a person. They have crossed that line where God is done calling them, done dealing with them. As it is written, "Remember your creator in the days of your youth," because if you pursue sin, you may think you are going to repent one day, but you will discover that you are unable to repent. For many, they will be just like Esau who sought repentance with tears, the Bible says, but couldn’t find it. It is a frightening thing to think that one could have lived their whole life thinking that after sowing their wild oats that he or she will then seek repentance in the end, but find themselves powerless to repent because there is sin unto death and you don’t know when you crossed that line wherein God is done with you and He isn’t going to reel you in again. Beware because if one puts off repentance and keep putting off repentance he or she will become so in love with their sin, he or she won't be able to repent. Remember Jesus' trial? He spoke to the High Priest, He spoke to Pilate; but He did not speak to Herod. That should tell us something about Herod. If you get to the point that God will not speak to you, you have crossed the line and are irretrievably wicked. Herod is a good example of someone I think had crossed over into the sin that leads to death. I see the reality of this in Ja 2:10 where all sin and one sin is equal! Thanks for the insight I believe it to be correct! Love, Steven Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdemoss Posted December 21, 2012 Group: Royal Member Followers: 8 Topic Count: 59 Topics Per Day: 0.01 Content Count: 4,402 Content Per Day: 0.98 Reputation: 2,154 Days Won: 28 Joined: 02/10/2012 Status: Offline Birthday: 04/26/1971 Share Posted December 21, 2012 What is it that I believe that you don't??? Many things but to discuss them here is to derail the thread. Have a good night. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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