Salvation...Can it be lost???

[Smalcald]

"I would like to make the point that it takes more than just mere faith and grace to fulfill our salvation."

Mere faith? Our faith, which is implanted by the Holy Spirit, is the most powerful force in the universe. It is the one thing Satan can't abide, and the one thing he works to destroy, it is a living-breathing thing so powerful the gates of hell cannot prevail against it, it is no "mere" thing.

Faith indeed produces fruits of works and sound doctrine and love, all will be evident, and a faith without those, is not a true living faith, it is dead as you quote from James.

But we could go around and around on that, but I think if you really thought about it you would see that any work we could do without faith, would take away from Christ

[Guest shiloh357]

You still have not asnwered the question of what it means to, "work out your salvation in fear and trembling". You keep telling me what it isn't, but you haven't told me what it is telling us and how we ally it to our Christianity.

No I have only told about 30 times what it means. The two words "work out" are one word in Greek. It is word that means to "put on display" to "show forth." When we "work out" our salvation, it means that we are demonstrating to the sinners that our profession is true. It means that when we say, "Jesus is my Savior and Lord," it is backed up with corresponding actions. We are "working out" our salvation when we do those things we should and abastain from sinful things in the sight of men in order that they can see our faith is genuine, and in doing so, we are giving a faithful testimony for the Lord.

YOU, on the other hand are missusing the concept to mean that we are working it out in order to be saved, and that is not at all what that Apostle Paul had in mind when he penned that phrase, and the surrounding context supports my view, and not yours. You simply refuse to do the study necessary. You simply grab verses and phrases and apply them anyway you want, and that is simply an incorrect method of handling the Scriptures.

This is what I don't understand, if works are not a part of our salvation like hope, faith, grace etc. are then why are they mentioned so many times? Why is our faith with out works dead?

Who said that works are not part of our salvation. I said that they are not part of ATTAINING our salvation. Works play a vital role where are salvation is concerned in that they the means by which live out our salvation not only to please the Lord, but to reach others. I cannot reach others if I am stealing white out and paper clips from the office. I cannot reach others if I gossip and spread rumors behind someone's back. Our works are tools that the Lord uses to reach people to Himself. It is through our good deeds that others know the authenticity of our faith.

That is why faith without works is dead. If you had ever bothered to study, James is saying that faith without works is "dead" in the sense that it is ineffective, impotent. We can talk all day long, but it is our works that people see. That is James' point. You are trying to apply what James is saying about justification in the wrong manner. James is talking about our works justifying, or authenticating our faith in the sight of men. He is not talking about being justified before God such as Paul is talking about in Romans 3 and 4.

You are living by only half of the scriptures and dismiss the ones that prove otherwise. That is why you say I sloppily hand the scriptures because they contradict you lazy Christianity.

No, your sloppiness is a product of your lack of skill in hermeneutics. I simply exegete the Bible better than you.

[EricH]

Shiloh

I know you have chased people off and turned people off to from this board because they have PM'd me about it. I bet they won't say on these boards because you would probably treat them the same way.

A statement like this is not very fair. If the individuals in question had an issue with Shiloh, they should have approached him about it. If they could not resolve the issue, they should have then gone with Shiloh to the leadership here for resolution. The Bible makes it pretty clear that:

1. They should not have shared their concerns with you. That is gossip and ignoring the Biblical process for conflict resolution.

2. You should not have shared their concerns in a public forum. That amounts to taking up their offence, and gossip.

The problem with your statement regarding Shiloh is that whether it is true or not, it is impossible for him to defend himself. The people have remained nameless, but have inflicted wounds on another brother in Christ in an unfair way. I was going to delete this, but since it has already been seen by so many, I felt it need to be rebuked publically.

[Smalcald]

Shilo is correct.

Works can have no part in our salvation; anything, which attempts to add on to what Christ has already done, is in error.

The underlying assumption of a faith plus works idea is that if we don't include works in salvation, people won't follow the commands of God, in fact are free from them. But that would mean that we follow God by compulsion only, not out of love. But if we follow God out of compulsion only this is sin, we in our heart hate the law, we are hypocrites, because we are doing it through threat of death, yet we are to love the law. The only way to love the law is through faith and true conversion. Lewis stated that through faith we indeed still follow the law, just not in a worried fearful way. We know we can't meet the law yet we try to follow it out of love, we give it a shot, not because we will perfectly fulfill the law, but because we want to try, the trying is the key.

[Guest shiloh357]

You still have not asnwered the question of what it means to, "work out your salvation in fear and trembling". You keep telling me what it isn't, but you haven't told me what it is telling us and how we ally it to our Christianity.

No I have only told about 30 times what it means. The two words "work out" are one word in Greek. It is word that means to "put on display" to "show forth." When we "work out" our salvation, it means that we are demonstrating to the sinners that our profession is true. It means that when we say, "Jesus is my Savior and Lord," it is backed up with corresponding actions. We are "working out" our salvation when we do those things we should and abastain from sinful things in the sight of men in order that they can see our faith is genuine, and in doing so, we are giving a faithful testimony for the Lord.

YOU, on the other hand are missusing the concept to mean that we are working it out in order to be saved, and that is not at all what that Apostle Paul had in mind when he penned that phrase, and the surrounding context supports my view, and not yours. You simply refuse to do the study necessary. You simply grab verses and phrases and apply them anyway you want, and that is simply an incorrect method of handling the Scriptures.

This is what I don't understand, if works are not a part of our salvation like hope, faith, grace etc. are then why are they mentioned so many times? Why is our faith with out works dead?

Who said that works are not part of our salvation. I said that they are not part of ATTAINING our salvation. Works play a vital role where are salvation is concerned in that they the means by which live out our salvation not only to please the Lord, but to reach others. I cannot reach others if I am stealing white out and paper clips from the office. I cannot reach others if I gossip and spread rumors behind someone's back. Our works are tools that the Lord uses to reach people to Himself. It is through our good deeds that others know the authenticity of our faith.

That is why faith without works is dead. If you had ever bothered to study, James is saying that faith without works is "dead" in the sense that it is ineffective, impotent. We can talk all day long, but it is our works that people see. That is James' point. You are trying to apply what James is saying about justification in the wrong manner. James is talking about our works justifying, or authenticating our faith in the sight of men. He is not talking about being justified before God such as Paul is talking about in Romans 3 and 4.

You are living by only half of the scriptures and dismiss the ones that prove otherwise. That is why you say I sloppily hand the scriptures because they contradict you lazy Christianity.

No, your sloppiness is a product of your lack of skill in hermeneutics. I simply exegete the Bible better than you.

Concerning this post, I want to point out that you are the one who is sloppy. You said the words work out in Philippians 2:12 are one Word in Greek and that they mean put on display and show forth. In reality they are two words. In the Greek it is katergazomai ek. The first word, the one translated as work means to work fully, accomplish, finish, fashion, cause, do , perform. The second word is the same one used for the word out throughout the entire New Testament. You do not exegete the Bible better, you pervert it.

No Katerergazomai by itself means "to work out" or to "perform." It actually has a lot of meanings, such as the ones you listed above, but the context determine word usage. As it applies here, Paul is not telling them how to attain salvation, but what to do with what the salvation they already have. And yes, I do exegete properly. He could not be telling them to fashion or finish their salvation. Jesus is the only one capable of such things. They certainly could not "cause" their own salvation. None of the defintions you put forth fit the context. I am not wrong.

[Guest shiloh357]

The problem with your argument is you are picking and choosing the portions of the definition that are helpful to your argument and leaving the rest out. I just wrote down the definition without picking and choosing the context. Everyone here doesn't have a Greek Dictionary and they are only getting the portion of the definition you want them to see. That is kind of deceitful to me.

Baloney. I admitted that the definitions you supplied do apply to word in different contexts. The word cannot mean ALL of those things at once. Only ONE definition can fit a given word within a given context. In other contexts, in other verses we might find the same word using one of the definitions you supplied. However the definition I am using is the ONLY one that fits the context of Phillipians 2.

[EricH]

The problem with your argument is you are picking and choosing the portions of the definition that are helpful to your argument and leaving the rest out. I just wrote down the definition without picking and choosing the context. Everyone here doesn't have a Greek Dictionary and they are only getting the portion of the definition you want them to see. That is kind of deceitful to me.

Baloney. I admitted that the definitions you supplied do apply to word in different contexts. The word cannot mean ALL of those things at once. Only ONE definition can fit a given word within a given context. In other contexts, in other verses we might find the same word using one of the definitions you supplied. However the definition I am using is the ONLY one that fits the context of Phillipians 2.

Shiloh is correct. Words carry with them in many cases a broad semantic range. They do not carry with them every nuance of that range every time they are used. Context is the determiner of the nuances the author intended, as can the way he used it in other places

[Ovedya]

Not having followed the course of this discussion too closely, I hope that this post doesn't disctract. If it does than I apologize.

I was just thinking the following this morning as I drove into work, and it seems appropriate to put this before the saints:

If, by following the Mosaic Law a man was considered righteous before God, and by not following the Law a man was considered unrighteous, then it should be right to say that the man who had followed the Law and subsequently failed to keep the Law "lost his salvation," right? In other words, by failing to continually keep the provisions by which he was righteous before God, he would have lost his salvation.

Okay, so if that's true, then there should have been a shift in the "paradigm of righteousness" after Jesus' death upon the cross, because in the post-resurrection period (today) righteousness is not out of the keeping of the Law, it is out of keeping Christ. So if our righteousness today is out of Christ, and not out of the Law, than this important factor of our salvation is entirely dependent upon something other than the carrying out of a system of Laws. It therefore has to be by faith: By faith we believe into Him, and He becomes our righteousness before God.

Following me so far?

Here's the problem then, as it appears to me: If a believer can lose their salvation then that would have to mean that he can lose his righteousness before God by virtue of his actions. That must mean, therefore, that at some point the inwelling Lord, who is the factor of righteousness in the believer, would have to leave the believer. That is very problematic considering the fact that the Lord Jesus promised His disciples two things, 1) That He would never leave them or forsake them, and, 2) That He would never leave them as orphans (In other weords, without a caretaker).

So essentially, isn't this calling Jesus a liar?

[apothanein kerdos]

I once lost my salvation.......until I remembered I left it in my car.....

[Guest shiloh357]

The problem with your argument is you are picking and choosing the portions of the definition that are helpful to your argument and leaving the rest out. I just wrote down the definition without picking and choosing the context. Everyone here doesn't have a Greek Dictionary and they are only getting the portion of the definition you want them to see. That is kind of deceitful to me.

Baloney. I admitted that the definitions you supplied do apply to word in different contexts. The word cannot mean ALL of those things at once. Only ONE definition can fit a given word within a given context. In other contexts, in other verses we might find the same word using one of the definitions you supplied. However the definition I am using is the ONLY one that fits the context of Phillipians 2.

I know you admitted the definition contains all of those words, but nobody would have know that if I hadn't posted it. You are right that it cannont mean everything in the dictionary definition, but you didn't give anyone a chance to decide for themselves what the correct meaning is. You wrote it in a way that made it appear you gave the entire definition.

I am not saying you were intentionally being deceitful. I just said it appeared that way to me.

It is not up to you, me, cardcaptor or anyone else to decide what we think the word means. It means what the context allows it to mean. Therefore I don't have to enterain different definitions. The purpose of hermeneutics is to determine what the author meant. That means I cannot subjectively decide which definition I want to apply. I apply what the author intended. I gave the entire definition that the given context allows.